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VALOUR AND VISION
Poems of the War
Arranged and Edited by
Jacqueline T. Trotter
D
T83
Strata, Sfeui ^nrfe
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Valour and Vision
To ems of the War
1914-1918
^Arranged and edited by
jfacqueline T. Trotter
Longmans, Green & Co.
39 Taternoster l^w, London
Fourth tAvenue and 'Tpth Street, New Tor^,
'Bombay, Calcutta, and (Madras
1920
The profits arising from the sate of this ■oolume •will be given
to the Incorborated Soldiers and Sailors Help Society
TO
MY FATHER
IN GRATEFUL MEMORY
PREFATORY NOTE
AS the primary object of this little book is to help a
I~\ cause dear to the heart of most English people, an
excuse for the appearance of yet another War Anthology
is, perhaps, not so necessary as some explanation of the
motives guiding the choice and arrangement of the poems.
The intention is to present the poet as the historian, and
to illustrate the different aspects and phases of the war
by contemporary poetry. An attempt has been made to
select a number of poems of real literary value, and
arrange them in ordered sequence. Since the historian
is concerned with the thoughts and aspirations of a nation
as well as with actual events, the poems chosen are not
only descriptive of campaigns and battles, but in many
cases expressive of moods and memories ; some have served
a passing purpose, others deal with thoughts and episodes
that should never be forgotten.
The poems have been grouped chronologically in five
sections corresponding to the five years of the war. A
short and very informal list of the principal events of the
year has been placed at the beginning of each section and
is merely intended to supply the context of the poems
that follow.
PREFATORY NOTE
The outbreak of war evoked a chorus of patriotic verse,
but with some noble exceptions it gave us little of per-
manent value. These early poems are chiefly concerned
with the glory and glamour of war, and many foretell a
speedy victory. They appeal in glowing language to the
righteousness of our cause and to the tradition set by our
classical and national heroes. Towards the end of the
year the tone is somewhat changed ; victory is no longer
imminent, the casualty lists tell their tale, and the struggle
threatens to be long ; the idea of service and sacrifice has
taken the place of glory and self-confidence.
' Use me, England,
in thine hour of need,
Let thy ruling
rule me now in deed.'
191 5 and 1916 are marked by the advent of the
Soldier Poets. Those were the days of battles that were
almost victories, of plans that nearly succeeded. Neuve
Chapelle, Gallipoli, Loos, the Somme, were all hailed
as the beginning of the end. The end was not yet, but
still hope ran high, and we looked forward to the great
offensive which was to end the war.
But in 191 7 a yet sterner note is struck; by this time
many of the Soldier Poets have sung their last song.
Failure after failure has made itself felt, the romance of
war is gone, and there only remains the daily roll of
vi
PREFATORY NOTE
missing and killed and the crowded hospitals ; the thought
of a decisive victory is far from us. This theme runs
through most of the poems of the period.
The gloom becomes even more intense at the opening
of 191 8 ; there are a few bright incidents such as the
naval exploit at Zeebrugge, but they are only flashes in
the ever-increasing darkness. Hopes, after years of
battle and toil are baffled by the German advance ; Paris
and the Coast are once more in jeopardy. Then the tide
turns and there follows that great October whicli brought
the long-sought Victory.
In the hope that these poems may recall for some who
read them the honour of our Nation's purpose in the Great
War, this selection has been made with all deference and
admiration.
I take this opportunity of thanking all those who have
kindly given permission for the inclusion of copyright
poems ; in every case the customary fees have been most
generously waived in consideration of the object which this
book is designed to help.
A list of the authors, publishers, and owners of copy-
right to whom I am thus indebted is printed at the end of
the volume.
I have also to thank the Editors of ' The Times', ' The
Observer ', ' The Spectator ', ' The Westminster Gazette ',
and ' The Cornhill Magazine ', for allowing me to print
many poems which first appeared in their columns. The
PREFATORY NOTE
Proprietors of ' Punch ' have generously given permission
for the inclusion of several copyright poems. To
Mr. J. B. Atliins, Mr. Bruce Richmond, and Miss Naomi
Royde-Smith, I am indebted for innumerable kindnesses.
I shall not here attempt to give more than a general
word of thanks to the many kind friends who have helped
me in the preparation of this little volume, but I cannot
omit to mention my special sense of gratitude to
Mrs. Andrew Lang, without whose encouragement it
would never have been undertaken, to Mr. Vincent Badde-
ley, and to my sister Angela Trotter, to whose assistance
its final completion is due.
J. T. T.
Jerusalem,
Nov. 19 1 9.
CONTENTS
ipi4
Nos
I.
The Fourth of August .
Laurence Binyon
2.
For all we Have and Are
Rudyard Kipling
3.
Happy is England now .
John Freeman
4-
The Searchlights .
Alfred Noyes
5.
Called Up ....
Dudley Clarke
6.
The Naval Reserve
E-velyn Underbill
7-
Minj-sweeping Trawlers
E. Hilton Young
8.
Men who March Away .
Thomas Hardy
9-
To the British Expeditionary
Force ....
Lord Gorell
10.
To the Vanguard .
Beatrix Brice
II.
The Toy Band
Henry Neivbolt
12.
They came from Far .
Alys Fane trotter
13.
The Colonists
Katharine Tynan
14.
The Indian Army .
R. E. Fernede
15.
The Volunteer
Herbert Asquith
16.
To "Women ....
Laurence Binyon
17.
Many Sisters to Many Brothers
Rose Macaulay
18.
The Admonition :— To Betsey Helen Parry Eden
19.
Flower of Youth .
Katharine Tynan
20.
The Army of the Dead
Barry Pain
21.
Field-Marshal Earl Roberts .
Oiuen Seaman
22.
OffCoronel ....
A. T. Nanki-vell
23-
The Return ....
John Freeman
24.
For the Fallen
Laurence Binyon
25.
The Dying Patriot
James Elroy Flecket
26.
The Debt Unpayable .
F. W. Bourdillon
27.
Use Me, England .
E. Bridges
CONTENTS
ipiy
Nos.
28.
In Flanders Fields
Joim McCrae
29.
Sursum .
T. W. H. Crosland
so-
Roving Lads .
Neil Munro
il-
Into Battle .
Julian Grenfell
32.
Julian Grenfell .
Maurice Baring
33-
Three Hills .
Everard 0<wen
34-
A Harrow Grave in
Flanders
Marquess qfCrelue
35.
St, George's Day — Ypres 1 9 1 5
Henry Newbolt
36.
Farewell
, ,
Robert Nichols
37-
Outward Bound .
^ ,
Notuell Oxland
38.
The Soldier .
,
Rupert Brooke
39-
Rupert Brooke
Wilfrid mison Gibson
40.
Gallipoli
." Dc
rothy Margaret Stuart
41.
From ' W ' Beach .
,
Geoffrey Dearmer
42.
Farewell to Anzac
C. Fox Smith
43-
BritishMerchant Service, 1915
C. Fox Smith
44-
Eyes in the Air .
Gilbert Frankau
45-
Before the Assault
R. E. Vernede
46.
Macleod's Lament
Neil Munro
47-
Back to Rest
William Noel Hodgson
48.
After Loos .
Patrick MacGill
49-
A Sonnet
Charles Hamilton Sorley
50.
The Question
Wilfrid Wilson Gibson
51-
Zepp Days .
P. H. B. Lyon
52-
A Thanksgiving .
Edward Shillito
53-
If we Return.
F. W. Harvey
54-
I have a Rendezvous with
Death
,
Alan Seeger
55.
Sons
, ,
T. W. H. Crosland
56-
With Christ in Flanders
L.W.
57.
Requiescant .
,
F. G. Scott
58.
How long, Lord
ipi6
Robert Palmer
59-
At the Wars .
, ,
Robert Nichols
60.
From Generation to Generation
John Drinknvater
61.
Liebestod
, ,
Alan Seeger
62,
Who Sleeps?
.
Eleanor Alexander
CONTENTS
Nos.
63.
Home Thoughts in Laventie .
E, Wyndham Tennant
64.
The Gift ....
Francis Brett Young
65.
Home Thoughts .
Anon.
66.
Lord Kitchener .
Robert Bridges
67.
The Halt ....
Edward Shanks
68.
The Old Way .
R. A. Hofnuood
69.
Before Action
William Noel Hodgson
70.
Battery moving up from Rest
Camp ....
Robert Nichols
71'
From the Somme .
Leslie Coulson
72.
Lines written in Captivity
F. J. Patmore
73-
Magpies in Picardy
T. P. Cameron Wilson
74-
To Tony — aged Three .
Marjorie Wilson
75.
Nameless Men
Edward Shillito
76.
Lamplight ....
May W. Cannan
77-
Fulfilment ....
Robert Nichols
78.
Two Fusiliers
Robert Graves
79-
The March ....
J. C. Squire
80.
Dawn at Beaumont Hamel .
1917
R. B. Marriott-Watson
81.
The Dead to the Living
Laurence Binyon
82.
Mesopotamia
J. Griffyth Fairfax
83.
Sanniyat ....
J. Griffyth Fairfax
84.
Sir Stanley Maude
J. Griffyth Fairfax
85.
The Forest of the Dead
J. Gr^yth Fairfax
86.
In France ....
Francis Ledwidge
87.
The Ragged Stone
Wilfrid Wilson Gibson
88.
Dreamers ....
Siegfried Sassoon
89.
Tell Me, Stranger .
Geoffrey Dearmer
90.
To a Bulldog
J. C. Squire
91.
Lights Out .
Edward Thomas
92.
InMemoriam: Edward Thomas Julian Thomas
93-
Meditation in Jime 1 9 1 7
Edivard Shanks
94.
Chemin des Dames
Crosbie Garstin
95-
Casualty ....
Robert Nichols
96.
From Albert to Bapaume
Alec Waugh
97.
On the Wings of the Morning
Jeffery Day
98.
Palestine ....
Katharine Tynan
99-
The Crusader's Tomb .
Laurence Housman
XI
CONTENTS
Nos.
lOO.
The Kingfisher
Dyneley Husjey
lOI.
Morituri Te Salutant .
P. H. B. Lyon
I02.
The Great Company .
Alys Fane '[rotter
103.
Epitaph on an Army of Mer-
cenaries . . . .
A. E. Housman
104.
A Lament ....
mifrid rniion Gibson
105.
Between Midnight and
Morning ....
Oiven Seaman
1918
Ip6.
To Those at Home
Robert Nichols
107.
The Tide : To the R. N. D.
A. P. Herbert
108.
Motley
Walter de la Mare
109.
Kismet
R. B. Marriott-tVatson
no.
Sunset
T. W. H. Cropland
III.
The King's Messengers
R. A. Hop<wood
112.
Destroyers ....
' Klaxon '
113.
Submarines ....
'Klaxon'
114.
Brothers of the Sea
J. H. Maenair
115.
Nox Mortis ....
Paul Beivsher
J16.
The Birds of Steel
W. H. Da-vies
117.
August X918 ....
Maurice Baring
118.
England's Saints 1914-1918 .
James Rhoades
119.
A Dirge of Victory
Lord Dunsany
120.
The Trust ....
C. A, Alington
121.
Vision
Frank Sidg<uiick
122.
Envoie . . • . .
Edtuard de Stein
123.
Now to be Still and Rest
P. H. B. Lyon
ACKI
JOWLEDGEMENTS AND NOTES .
• 139
Index of Authors
• 145
I9I4
The 'Retreat —
{Mons
Le Cateau
Cambrai
St. §luentin
The 3^ame
The iAune
'Battle of the "Bight
Fall of Antwerp
First Battle ofTpres
Tsingtau
Basrah
South-west ttAfrica
Bast sAfrica
Cape Coronel
Battle of the Falkland Islands
I 9 14
T'he Fourth of August
'^J OW in thy splendour go before us,
■'• ^ Spirit of England, ardent-eyed.
Enkindle this dear earth that bore us.
In the hour of peril purified.
The cares we hugged drop out of vision,
Our hearts with deeper thoughts dilate.
We step from days of sour division
Into the grandeur of our fate.
For us the glorious dead have striven,
They battled that we might be free.
We to their living cause are given ;
We arm for men that are to be.
Among the nations nobliest chartered,
England recalls her heritage.
In her is that which is not bartered,
Which force can neither quell nor cage.
For her immortal stars are burning ;
With her the hope that 's never done.
The seed that 's in the Spring *s returning.
The very flower that seeks the sun.
She fights the fraud that feeds desire on
Lies, in a lust to enslave or kill,
The barren creed of blood and iron.
Vampire of Europe's wasted will. . . .
3 B 2
VALOUR AND VISION
Endure, O Earth ! and thou, awaken,
Purged by this dreadful winnowing-fan,
O wronged, untameable, unshaken
Soul of divinely suffering man.
Laurence Binyon.
2
' For all we have and are '
FOR all we have and are,
For all our children's fate.
Stand up and take the war.
The Hun is at the gate !
Our world has passed away,
In wantonness o'erthrown.
There is nothing left to-day
But steel and fire and stone !
Though all we knew depart.
The old Commandments stand : —
' In courage keep your heart.
In strength lift up your hand.'
Once more we hear the word
That sickened earth of old : —
' No law except the Sword
Unsheathed and uncontrolled.'
Once more it knits mankind.
Once more the nations go
To meet and break and bind
A crazed and driven foe.
Comfort, content, delight,
The ages' slow-bought gain.
They shrivelled in a night.
Only ourselves remain
19 14
To face the naked days
In silent fortitude,
Through perils and dismays
Renewed and re-renewed.
Though all we made depart,
The old Commandments stand : —
' In patience keep your heart,
In strength lift up your hand.'
No easy hopes or lies
Shall bring us to our goal,
But iron sacrifice
Of body, will, and soul.
There is but one task for all —
One life for each to give.
Who stands if Freedom fall ?
Who dies if England live ?
RuDYARD Kipling.
Happy is England now
THERE is not anything more wonderful
Than a great people moving towards the deep
Of an unguessed and unfeared future ; nor
Is aught so dear of all held dear before
As the new passion stirring in their veins
When the destrojring Dragon wakes from sleep.
Happy is England now, as never yet !
And though the sorrows of the slow days fret
Her faithfullest children, grief itself is proud.
Ev'n the warm beauty of this spring and summer
That turns to bitterness turns then to gladness
Since for this England the beloved ones died.
5
VALOUR AND VISION
Happy is England in the brave that die
For wrongs not hers and wrongs so sternly hers ;
Happy in those that give, give, and endure
The pain that never the new years may cure ;
Happy in all her dark woods, green fields, towns,
Her hills and rivers and her chafing sea,
Whate'er was dear before is dearer now.
There 's not a bird singing upon his bough
But sings the sweeter in our English ears :
There 's not a nobleness of heart, hand, brain
But shines the purer ; happiest is England now
In those that fight, and watch with pride and tears.
John Freeman.
4
T^he Search-lights
SHADOW by shadow, stripped for fight,
The lean black cruisers search the sea.
Night-long their level shafts of light
Revolve, and find no enemy.
Only they know each leaping wave
May hide the lightning, and their grave.
And in the land they guard so well
Is there no silent watch to keep ?
An age is dying, and the bell
Rings midnight on a vaster deep.
But over all its waves, once more.
The search-lights move, from shore to shore.
And captains that we thought were dead,
And dreamers that we thought were dumb,
And voices that we thought were fled,
Arise, and call us, and we come ;
And ' Search in thine own soul ', they cry ;
' For there, too, lurks thine enemy '.
6
1914
Search for the foe in thine own soul,
The sloth, the intellectual pride ;
The trivial jest that veils the goal
For which our fathers lived and died ;
The lawless dreams, the cynic Art,
That rend thy nobler self apart.
Not far, not far into the night.
These level swords of light can pierce ;
Yet for her faith does England fight.
Her faith in this our universe ;
Believing Truth and Justice draw
From founts of everlasting law ;
Therefore a Power above the State,
The unconquerable Power returns.
The fire, the fire that made her great
Once more upon her altar burns.
Once more, redeemed and healed and whole,
She moves to the Eternal Goal.
Alfred Noyes.
T
Galled up
COME, tumble up. Lord Nelson, the British Fleet's
a looming !
Come, show a leg, Lord Nelson, the guns they are
a-booming !
'Tis a longish line of battle, — such as we did never see;
An' 'tis not the same old round-shot as was fired by you
an' me !
What see St thou. Sir Francis? — Strange things I see
appearing !
What hearest thou, Sir Francis ? — Strange sounds I do be
hearing !
7
VALOUR AND VISION
They are fighting in the heavens ; they're at war beneath
the sea !
Ay, their ways are mighty different from the ways o' you
an' me !
See'st thou nought else. Sir Francis ? — I see great lights
a-seeking !
Nearest thou nought else, Sir Francis ? — I hear thin wires
a-speaking !
Three leagues that shot hath carried ! — God, that such
could ever be I
There 's no mortal doubt. Lord Nelson — they ha' done wi'
you an' me !
Looi thou again, Sir Francis ! — I see the flags a-flapping !
Hearken once more. Sir Francis ! — I hear the sticks
a-tapping !
'Tis a sight that calls me thither ! — 'Tis a sound that bids
me ' Come ! '
'7«j the old Trafalgar signal! — 'Tis the beating of my
drum!
Art thou ready, good Sir Francis ? See, they <u>ait upon the
quay /
Praise be to God, Lord Nelson, they ha' thought of you
an' me !
Dudley Clark.
6
The Naval Reserve
"CROM the undiscovered deep
■*■ Where the blessed lie at ease —
Since the ancient navies keep
Empire of the heavenly seas —
Back they come, the mighty dead,
Quick to serve where they have led.
8
1914
Rushing on the homeward gale,
Swift they come, to seek their place
Where the grey flotillas sail,
Where the children of their race
Now against the foe maintain
All they gave their lives to gain.
Rank on rank, the admirals
Rally to their old commands :
Where the crash of battle falls,
There the one-armed hero stands.
Loud upon his phantom mast
Speak the signals of the past.
Where upon the friendly wave
Stand our squadrons as of old,
Where the lonely deed and brave
Shall the ancient torch uphold,
Strive for England, side by side.
Those who live and those who died.
Evelyn Underbill.
7
Mine-sweeping Trawlers
NOT ours the fighter's glow,
the glory, and the praise.
Unnoticed to and fro
we pass our dangerous ways.
We sift the drifting sea,
and blindly grope beneath ;
obscure and toilsome we,
the fishermen of death.
VALOUR AND VISION
But when the great ships go
to battle through the gloom,
our hearts beat high to know
we cleared their path of doom.
E. Hilton Young,
Men who march away
(Song of the Soldiers.)
WHAT of the faith and the fire within us
Men who march away
Ere the barn-cocks say
Night is growing gray,
Leaving all that here can win us ;
What of the faith and fire within us
Men who march away ?
Is it a purblind prank, O think you.
Friend with the musing eye,
Who watch us stepping by
With doubt and dolorous sigh ?
Can much pondering so hoodwink you!
Is it a purblind prank, O think you.
Friend with the musing eye ?
Nay. We well see what we are doing.
Though some may not see —
Dalliers as they be —
England's need are we ;
Her distress would leave us rueing :
Nay. We well see what we are doing.
Though some may not see !
19 14
In our heart of hearts believing
Victory crowns the just,
And that braggarts must
Surely bite the dust,
Press we to the field ungrieving.
In our heart of hearts believing
Victory crowns the just.
Hence the faith and fire within us
Men who march away
Ere the barn-cocks say
Night is growing gray,
Leaving all that here can win us ;
Hence the faith and fire within us
Men who march away.
Thomas Hardy.
P
'To the British Expeditionary Force
ID RITISH soldiers, once again
-•— ' You are marshalled on the plain
By our fathers' blood renowned :
You are treading sacred ground !
Harken, barken as you pass,
To the voices in the grass !
On the Belgian soil it waves
O'er the lone, unnumbered graves
Where immortal warriors lie.
Devotees of Liberty
Nobly fallen in the fray.
Ramillies and Malplaquet,
Quatre Bras and Waterloo
Yield their legions up to you !
II
VALOUR AND VISION
British soldiers, you will fight
'Neath the banner of the Right :
You are holding in your hands
Liberty of little lands.
Seeking nothing, giving all.
Answering to Honour's call.
Stay aggression's grim attack !
Hurl the impious menace back
Devotees of Liberty,
Ride you now to victory !
We in England watch and pray
Ramillies and Malplaquet,
Quatre Bras and Waterloo
Yield their soul to strengthen you !
Lord Gorell.
10
'To the Vanguard
OH little mighty Force that stood for England !
That, with your bodies for a living shield,
Guarded her slow awaking, that defied
The sudden challenge of tremendous odds
And fought the rushing legions to a stand —
Then stark in grim endurance held the line.
O little Force that in your agony
Stood fast while England girt her armoiu' on.
Held high our honour in your wounded hands,
Carried our honour safe with bleeding feet —
We have no glory great enough for you.
The very soul of Britain keeps your day !
Procession ? — Marches forth a Race in Arms ;
And, for the thunder of the crowd's applause,
12
1 914
Crash upon crash the voice of monstrous guns,
Fed by the sweat, served by the life of England,
Shouting yoiu- battle-cry across the world.
Oh, little mighty Force, your way is ours,
This land inviolate your monument.
Beatrix Brice.
II
The toy Band
A Song of the Great Retreat.
P\REARY lay the long road, dreary lay the town,
■*-^ Lights out and never a glint o' moon :
Weary lay the stragglers, half a thousand down.
Sad sighed the weary big Dragoon.
' Oh ! if I'd a drum here to make them take the road
again.
Oh ! if I'd a fife to wheedle, Come, boys, come !
You that mean to fight it out, wake and take your load
again.
Fall in ! Fall in ! Follow the fife and drum !
' Hey, but here 's a toy shop, here 's a drum for me.
Penny whistles too to play the tune !
Half a thousand dead men soon shall hear and see
We're a band ! ' said the weary big Dragoon.
' Rubadub ! Rubadub ! Wake and take the road again,
Wheedle-deedle-deedle-dee, Come, boys, come !
You that mean to fight it out, wake and take you load
again.
Fall in ! Fall in ! Follow the fife and drum ! '
Cheerly goes the dark road, cheerly goes the night,
Cheerly goes the blood to keep the beat :
Half a thousand dead men marching on to fight
With a little penny drum to lift their feet.
13
VALOUR AND VISION
Rubadub ! Rubadub ! Wake and take the road again,
Wheedle-deedle-deedle-dee, Come, boys, come !
You that mean to fight it out, wake and take your load
again.
Fall in ! Fall in ! Follow the fife and drum !
As long as there 's an Englishman to ask a tale of me,
As long as I can tell the tale aright,
We'll not forget the penny whistle's wheedle-deedle-dee
And the big Dragoon a-beating down the night,
Rubadub ! Rubadub ! Wake and take the road again,
Wheedle-deedle-deedle-dee, Come, boys, come !
You that mean to fight it out, wake and take your load
again.
Fall in ! Fall in ! Follow the fife and drum !
Henry Newbolt.
12
'They came from far
WITH rainbow gifts life filled her joyous hands
And held them out, with kisses on her lips.
But the boys, knowing all,
Shook their young heads and laughed, and sought the ships.
To carry them to grey and distant lands,
Hearing another call.
And death, because they laughed and had no guile,
Sent a great star to fill them with content.
So the boys, undismayed,
Walked the dark valley singing as they went.
And God was surely with thera all the while,
Since they were not afraid.
Alys Fane Trotter.
14
1914
The Colonists
"T^O men now of her blood and race
*■ England 's a little garden place,
Dear as a women is, and she
The Queen of every loyalty.
To dwellers 'mid the ice and snows.
She is their secret garden rose
From which that bee, their heart, sucks off
For the cold Winter honey enough.
To toilers 'mid the sultry plains.
Sick for her tempered suns and rains,
She is the thought that wets their eyes
And hearts with dew of Paradise.
Most loved of those who never knew
Her green o' the silk and her soft blue.
Her mild inviolate fields that be
Hedged with the sweet-briar of the sea.
Sweet in their dreams her Summers are.
Her tranquil nights of moon and star.
The love-songs of her nightingales ;
A water-spring that never fails.
Amid their unending distances
Her little crowded sweetness is
A dream of rest, a dream of prayer,
With homes and children everywhere.
Touch her — and they are all on fire.
This little land of their desire
Seen in a mirage far away
With light upon her night and day.
Katharine Tynan.
15
VALOUR AND VISION
H
The Indian Army
INTO the West they are marching! This is their
longed-for day
When that which England gave them they may at last
repay ;
When for the faith she dealt them, peasants and priests
and lords,
When for the love they bear her, they shall unsheathe their
swords !
Men of the plains and hill-men, men born to warrior r61es.
Tall men of matchless ardour, small men with mighty
souls.
Rulers alike and subjects : splendid the roll-call rings :
Rajahs and Maharajahs, Kings and the sons of Kings,
Bikanir, Patiala, Ratlam and Kishangarh,
Jodhpur, who rides the leopard down, Sachin and Cooch-
Behar,
From lands where skies are molten and suns strike down
and parch.
Out of the East they're marching, into the West they
march.
Oh little nimble Gurkhas, who've won a hundred fights.
Oh Sikhs — the Sikhs who failed not upon the Dargai
heights,
Rajputs, against whose valour once in a younger world
Ruthless, unceasing, vainly, the Mogul's hosts were hurled.
Grey are our Western daybreaks and grey our Western
skies
And very cold the night-watch unbroke by jackals' cries ;
Hard too will be the waiting — you do not love to wait ?
Aye, but the charge with bayonets — they'll sound it soon
or late !
l6
I9I4
And when that charge is sounded, who'll heed grey skies
and cold ?
Not you, Sikhs, Rajputs, Gurkhas, if to one thought you
hold,
If as you cross the open, if as the foe you near,
If as you leap the trenches, this thought is very clear :
These foes, they are not sahibs : they break the word they
plight,
On babes their blades are "whetted, dead -women know their
might.
Their Princes are as sweepers whom none may touch or
trust.
Their gods they have forgotten ; their honour trails the
dust ;
All that they hadqfizzat is trodden under heel —
Into their hearts, my brothers, drive home, drive home the
steel!
•I-R. E. Vernede.
IS
'The Volunteer
HERE lies a clerk who half his life had spent
Toiling at ledgers in a city grey.
Thinking that so his days would drift away
With no lance broken in life's tournament :
Yet ever 'twixt the books and his bright eyes
The gleaming eagles of the legions came,
And horsemen, charging under phantom skies.
Went thundering past beneath the oriflamme.
And now those waiting dreams are satisfied ;
From twilight to the halls of dawn he went ;
His lance is broken ; but he lies content
With that high hour, in which he lived and died.
17 C
VALOUR AND VISION
And falling thus, he wants no recompense,
Who found his battle in the last resort ;
Nor needs he any hearse to bear him hence,
Who goes to join the men of Agincourt.
Herbert Asquith.
l6
To Women
YOUR hearts are lifted up, your hearts
That have foreknown the utter price.
Your hearts bum upward like a Hame
Of splendour and of sacrifice.
For you, you too, to battle go,
Not with the marching drums and cheers
But in the watch of solitude
And through the boundless night of fears.
Swift, swifter than those hawks of war.
Those threatening wings that pulse the air.
Far as the vanward ranks are set,
You are gone before them, you are there !
And not a shot comes blind with death
And not a stab of steel is pressed
Heme, but invisibly it tore
And entered first a woman's breast.
Amid the thunder of the guns,
The lightnings of the lance and sword.
Your hope, your dread, your throbbing pride,
Your infinite passion is outpoured
From hearts that are as one high heart
Withholding naught from doom and bale,
Burningly offered up, — to bleed,
To bear, to break, but not to fail !
Laurence Binyon.
i8
I9I4
17
Many Sisters to many Brothers
WHEN we fought campaigns (in the long Christmas
rains)
With soldiers spread in troops on the floor,
I shot as straight as you, my losses were as few,
My victories as many, or more.
And when in naval battle, amid cannon's rattle,
Fleet met fleet in the bath,
My cruisers were as trim, my battleships as grim.
My submarines cut as swift a path.
Or, when it rained too long, and the strength of the strong
Surged up and broke a way with blows,
I was as lit and keen, my fists hit as clean.
Your black eye matched my bleeding nose.
Was there a scrap or ploy in which you, the boy,
Could better me ? You could not climb higher.
Ride straighter, run as quick (and to smoke made you sick)
. . . But I sit here, and you're under fire.
Oh, it's you that have the luck, out there in blood and
muck:
You were born beneath a kindly star ;
All we dreamt, I and you, you can really go and do.
And I can't, the way things are.
In a trench you are sitting, while I am knitting
A hopeless sock that never gets done.
Well, here 's luck, my dear ; — and you've got it, no fear ;
But for me ... a war is poor fun.
Rose Macaulay.
19 c 2
VALOUR AND VISION
The Admonition: — To Betsey
TDEMEMBER, on your knees,
The men •who guard your slumbers —
And guard a house in a still street
Of drifting leaves and drifting feet,
A deep blue window where below
Lies moonlight on the roofs like snow,
A clock that still the quarters tells
To the dove that roosts beneath the bell's
Grave canopy of silent brass
Round which the little night winds pass
Yet stir it not in the grey steeple ;
And guard all small and drowsy people
Whom gentlest dusk doth disattire.
Undressing by the nursery fire
In unperturbed numbers
On this side of the seas —
Remember, on your knees.
The men who guard your slumbers.
Helen Parry Eden.
19
Flower of Touth
T EST Heaven be thronged with grey-beards hoary,
•*-' God, who made boys for His delight.
Stoops in a day of grief and glory
And calls them in, in from the night.
When they come trooping from the war
Our skies have many a new gold star.
20
191 4
Heaven 's thronged with gay and careless faces.
New-waked from dreams of dreadful things,
They walk in green and pleasant places
And by the crystal water-springs
Who dreamt of dying and the slain.
And the fierce thirst and the strong pain.
Dear boys ! They shall be young for ever.
The Son of God was once a boy.
They run and leap by a clear river
And of their youth they have great joy.
God who made boys so clean and good
Smiles with the eyes of Fatherhood.
Now Heaven is by the young invaded ;
Their laughter 's in the House of God.
Stainless and simple as He made it
God keeps the heart o' the boy unflawed.
The old wise saints look on and smile,
They are so young and without guile.
Oh, if the sonless mothers weeping,
And widowed girls could look inside
The glory that hath them in keeping
Who went to the Great War and died,
They would rise and put their mourning off,
And say : ' Thank God, he has enough ! '
Katharine Tynan.
20
The Army of the Bead
I DREAMED that overhead
I saw in twilight grey
The Army of the Dead
Marching upon its way,
21
VALOUR AND VISION
So still and passionless,
With faces so serene,
That scarcely could one guess
Such men in war had been.
No mark of hurt they bore,
Nor smoke, nor bloody stain,
Nor suffered any more
Famine, fatigue or pain ;
Nor any lust of hate
Now lingered in their eyes —
Who have fulfilled their Fate
Have lost all enmities.
A new and greater pride
So quenched the pride of race
That foes marched side by side
Who once fought face to face.
That ghostly army's plan
Knows but one race, one rod —
All nations there are Men
And the one King is God.
No longer on their ears
The bugle's summons falls ;
Beyond these tangled spheres
The Archangel's trumpet calls ;
And by that trumpet led
Far up the exalted sky
The Army of the Dead
Goes by, and still goes by.
Look upward, standing mute ;
Salute !
Barry Pain.
22
I9I4
21
Field-Marshal Earl Roberts
T_J E died, as soldiers die, amid the strife,
-*• * Mindful of England in his latest prayer ;
God, of His love, would have so fair a life
Crowned with a death as fair.
He might not lead the battle as of old,
But, as of old, among his own he went,
Breathing a fdth that never once grew cold,
A courage still unspent.
So was his end ; and, in that hour, across
The face of War a wind of silence blew,
And bitterest foes paid tribute to the loss
Of a great heart and true.
But we who loved him, what have we to lay
For sign of worship on his warrior-bier ?
What homage, could his lips but speak to-day.
Would he have held most dear ?
Not grief, as for a life untimely reft ;
Not vain regret for counsel given in vain ;
Not pride of that high record he has left.
Peerless and pure of stain ;
But service of our lives to keep her free,
The land he served ; a pledge above his grave
To give her even such a gift as he,
The soul of loyalty, gave.
That oath we plight, as now the trumpets swell
His requiem, and the men-at-arms stand mute,
And through the mist the guns he loved so well
Thunder a last salute !
Owen Seaman.
23
VALOUR AND VISION
22
Off Coronet
SINCE Sturdee cleared the Southern Seas
Cradock's ' Good Hope ' sleeps deep and well,
And he, avenged, can take his ease
Among his men off Coronel.
A. T. Nankivell.
Tihe Return
1 HEARD the rumbling guns. I saw the smoke,
The unintelligible shock of hosts that still,
Far off, unseeing, strove and strove again :
And Beauty flying naked down the hill.
From morn till eve : and then stem night cried Peace !
And shut the strife in darkness : all was still.
Then slowly crept a triumph on the dark —
And I heard Beauty singing up the hill.
John Freeman.
^ For the Fallen
"^TTITH proud thanksgiving, a mother for her children,
''^ England mourns for her dead across the sea.
Flesh of her flesh they were, spirit of her spirit,
Fallen in the cause of the free.
Solemn the drums thrill : Death august and royal
Sings sorrow up into immortal spheres.
There is music in the midst of desolation
And a glory that shines upon our tears.
24
I9I4
They went with songs to the battle, they were young,
Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow.
They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted,
They fell with their faces to the foe.
They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old :
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.
They mingle not with their laughing comrades again ;
They sit no more at familiar tables of home ;
They have no lot in our labour of the day-time ;
They sleep beyond England's foam.
But where our desires are and our hopes profound,
Felt as a well-spring that is hidden from sight.
To the innermost heart of their own land they are known
As the stars are known to the Night ;
As the stars that shall be bright when we are dust
Moving in marches upon the heavenly plain,
As the stars that are starry in the time of our darkness,
To the end, to the end, they remain.
Laurence Binyon.
'The Dying Patriot
DAY breaks on England down the Kentish hills.
Singing in the silence of the meadow-footing rills.
Day of my dreams, O day !
I saw them march from Dover, long ago.
With a silver cross before them, singing low.
Monks of Rome from their home where the blue seas
break in foam,
Augustine with his feet of snow.
25
VALOUR AND VISION
Noon strikes on England, noon on Oxford town,
— Beauty she was statue cold — there 's blood upon her
gown :
Noon of my dreams, O noon !
Proud and godly kings had built her, long ago.
With her towers and tombs and statues all arow,
With her fair and floral air and the love that lingers there,
And the streets where the great men go.
Evening on the olden, the golden sea of Wales,
When the first star shivers and the last wave pales :
O evening dreams !
There 's a house that Britons walked in, long ago.
Where now the springs of ocean fall and flow,
And the dead robed in red and sea-lilies overhead
Sway when the long winds blow.
Sleep not, my country : though night is here, afar
Your children of the morning are clamorous for war :
Fire in the night, O dreams !
Though she send you as she sent you, long ago,
South to desert, east to ocean, west to snow.
West of these out to seas colder than the Hebrides
I must go
Where the fleet of stars is anchored and the young
Star-captains glow.
James Elroy Flecker.
26
The Debt Unpayable
WHAT have I given.
Bold sailor on the sea,
In earth or heaven
That you should die for me ?
26
1914
What can I give
O soldier, leal and brave
Long as I live,
To pay the life you gave ?
What tithe or part
Can I return to thee,
O stricken heart,
That thou should'st break for me ?
The wind of Death
For you has slain life's flowers,
It withereth
(God grant !) all weeds in ours.
F. W, BOURDILLON.
USE me, England,
in thine hour of need,
Let thy ruling
rule me now in deed.
Sons and brothers
take for armoury.
All love's jewels
crushed, thy warpath be.
Thou hast given
joyous life and free,
Life whose joy now
anguisheth for thee.
Give then, England,
if ray life thou need,
Gift yet fairer,
Death, thy life to feed.
E. Bridges
27
battle of the 'Dogger "Bank
D^uve Chapelle
Second 'Battle of Ipres
Festubert
Qallipoli —
The Landing
Battle ofKrithia
Suvla Bay
The Evacuation
e^den
Hill do
Hooge
Loos
Capture of Kjit-el-idmara
Battle of Ctesiphon
Salonika
Jidacedonia
29
I9I5
28
In Flanders Fields
T N Flanders fields the poppies blow
*■ Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place ; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow.
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe :
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch ; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
•J" John McCrae.
29
Sursum
I SAW his dread plume gleaming,
As he rode down the line,
And cried like one a-dreaming
' That man, and that, is mine ! '
31
VALOUR AND VISION
They did not fail or falter
Because his front so shone ;
His horse's golden halter
With star-dust thick was sown.
They followed him like seigneurs,
Proud both of mien and mind —
Colonels and old campaigners
And bits of lads new-joined.
A glittering way he showed them
Beyond the dim outpost,
And in his tents bestowed them —
White as the Holy Ghost.
And, by the clear watch-fires,
They talk with conquerors,
And have their hearts' desires,
And praise the honest wars.
And each of them in raiment
Of honour goeth drest.
And hath his fee and payment.
And glory on his breast.
O woman, that sit'st weeping —
Close, like the stricken dove, —
He is in goodly keeping.
The soldier thou didst love !
T. W. H. Crosland.
30
Roving Lads
UNCOVENANTED godless race.
Astray and under spells,
We left for you the promised grace,
And sought nane for oursels.
32
Our souls might be in jeopardy
As lang's our blood ran hot,
But surely we're assoiled and free
Now that we've paid our shot !
Mickle we missed, be it confessed,
That brings auld age content ;
Blaw the wind East, or blaw it West,
'Twas there wi' a sang we went.
Moon in the glen, youth in the blood.
Sent us stravaigin' far ;
Ower late ! ower late in the whisperin' wood,
So we saw nae morning star.
Deep, deep we drank in tavern lands,
For the sake o' companie,
And some of us wrecked on Young Man Sands,
Ere ever we got to sea.
We had nae heed for the parish bell,
But still — when the bugle cried.
We went for you to Neuve Chapelle,
We went for you to the yetts o' Hell,
And there for you we died !
Neil Munro.
31
Into Battle
THE naked earth is warm with Spring,
And with green grass and bursting trees
Leans to the sun's gaze glorying.
And quivers in the sunny breeze ;
33
VALOUR AND VISION
And Life is Colour and Warmth and Light,
And a striving evermore for these ;
And he is dead who will not fight,
And who dies fighting has increase.
The fighting man shall from the sun
Take warmth, and life from the glowing earth ;
Speed with the light-foot winds to run,
And with the trees to newer birth ;
And find, when fighting shall be done.
Great rest, and fullness after dearth.
All the bright company of heaven
Hold him in their high comradeship.
The Dog-Star, and the Sisters Seven,
Orion's Belt and sworded hip.
The woodland trees that stand together,
They stand to him each one a friend ;
They gently speak in the windy weather ;
They guide to valley and ridge's end.
The kestrel hovering by day.
And the little owls that call by night.
Bid him be swift and keen as they.
As keen of ear, as swift of sight.
The blackbird sings to him, ' Brother, brother,
' If this be the last song you shall sing
' Sing well, for you may not sing another ;
' Brother, sing.'
In dreary, doubtful, waiting hours.
Before the brazen frenzy starts.
The horses show him nobler powers ; —
O patient eyes, courageous hearts !
34
And when the burning moment breaks,
And all things else are out of mind,
And only joy of battle takes
Him by the throat, and makes him blind,
Through joy and blindness he shall know.
Not caring much to know, that still
Nor lead nor steel shall reach him, so
That it be not the Destined Will.
The thundering line of battle stands,
And in the air Death moans and sings ;
But Day shall clasp him with strong hands.
And Night shall fold him in soft wings.
■}■ Julian Grenfell.
'Julian Grenfell
D ECAUSE of you we will be glad and gay,
■'-' Remembering you, we will be brave and strong ;
And hail the advent of each dangerous day.
And meet the last adventure with a song.
And, as you proudly gave your jewelled gift,
We'll give our lesser offering with a smile,
Nor falter on that path where, all too swift.
You led the way and leapt the golden stile.
Whether new paths, new heights to climb you find,
Or gallop through the unfooted asphodel.
We know you know we shall not lag behind.
Nor halt to waste a moment on a fear ;
And you will speed us onward with a cheer.
And wave beyond the stars that all is well.
Maurice Baring.
35 D 2
VALOUR AND VISION
33
three Hills
THERE is a hill in England,^
Green fields and a school I know,
Where the balls fly fast in summer,
And the whispering elm-trees grow,
A little hill, a dear hill,
And the playing fields below.
There is a hill in Flanders,*
Heaped with a thousand slain,
Where the shells fly night and noontide
And the ghosts that died in vain,
A little hill, a hard hill
To the souls that died in pain.
There is a hill in Jewry,
Three crosses pierce the sky.
On the midmost He is dying
To save all those who die,
A little hill, a kind hill
To souls in jeopardy.
EvERARD Owen.
34
A Harrow Grave in Flanders
TLJERE in the marshland, past the battered bridge,
^ ^ One of a hundred grains untimely sown.
Here, with his comrades of the hard-won ridge
He rests, unknown.
' Harrow. ^ Hill 60.
36
His horoscope had seemed so plainly drawn —
School triumphs, earned apace in work and play ;
Friendships at will ; then love's delightful dawn
And mellowing day.
Home fostering hope ; some service to the State ;
Benignant age ; then the long tryst to keep
Where in the yew-tree shadow congregate
His Fathers sleep.
Was here the one thing needful to distil
From life's alembic, through this holier fate,
The man's essential soul, the hero will ?
We ask, — and wait.
Marquess of Crewe.
St. George's Day — Tpres ipif
TO fill the gap, to bear the brunt
With bayonet and with spade.
Four hundred to a four-mile front
Unbacked and undismayed —
What men are these, of what great race,
From what old shire or town.
That run with such goodwill to face
Death on a Flemish down ?
Let be I they bind a broken line :
As men die, so die they.
Land of the free I their Ufe tuas thine.
It is St. George's Day.
Yet say whose ardour bids them stand
At bay by yonder bank,
Where a boy's voice and a boy's hand
Close up the quivering rank,
37
VALOUR AND VISION
Who under those all-shattering skies
Plays out his captain's part
With the last darkness in his eyes
And Domum in his heart ?
Let be, let be I In yonder line
All names are burned away.
Land of his love/ the fame be thine.
It is St. George's Day,
Henry Newbolt.
Farewell
FOR the last time, maybe, upon the knoll
I stand. The eve is golden, languid, sad. . . .
Day like a tragic actor plays his r8le
To the last whispered word, and falls gold-clad.
I, too, take leave of all I ever had.
They shall not say I went with heavy heart :
Heavy I am, but soon I shall be free ;
I love them all, but oh I now depart
A little sadly, strangely, fearfully.
As one who goes to try a Mystery.
The bell is sounding down in Dedham vale :
Be still, O bell ! too often standing here
When all the air was tremulous, fine, and pale.
Thy golden note so calm, so still, so clear.
Out of my stony heart has struck a tear.
And now tears are not mine. I have release
From all the former and the later pain ;
Like the mid- sea I rock in boundless peace.
Soothed by the charity of the deep sea rain. . . .
Calm rain ! Calm sea ! Calm found, long sought in vain,
38
1915
O bronzen pines, evening of gold and blue,
Steep mellow slope, brimmed twilit pools below,
Hushed trees, still vale dissolving in the dew,
Farewell ! Farewell 1 There is no more to do.
We have been happy. Happy now I go.
Robert Nichols.
37
Outward Bound
•yHERE 'S a waterfall I'm leaving
■»• Running down the rocks in foam,
There 's a pool for which I'm grieving
Near the water-ouzel's home.
And it 's there that I'd be lying
With the heather close at hand,
And the curlews faintly crying
Mid the wastes of Cumberland.
While the midnight watch is winging
Thoughts of other days arise,
I can hear the river singing
Like the Saints in Paradise ;
I can see the water winking
Like the merry eyes of Pan,
And the slow half-pounder sinking
By the bridge's granite span.
Ah ! to win them back and clamber
Braced anew with winds I love,
From the river's stainless amber
To the morning mist above,
See through cloud-rifts rent asunder
Like a painted scroll unfurled,
Ridge and hollow rolling under
To the fringes of the world.
39
VALOUR AND VISION
Now the weary guard are sleeping,
Now the great propellers chum,
Now the harbour lights are creeping
Into emptiness astern,
While the sentry wakes and watches
Plunging triangles of light
Where the water leaps and catches
At our escort in the night.
Great their happiness who seeing
Still with unbenighted eyes
Kin of theirs who gave them being,
Sun and earth that made them wise.
Die and feel their embers quicken
Year by year in summer time.
When the cotton grasses thicken
On the hills they used to climb.
Shall we also be as they be,
Mingled with our mother clay.
Or return no more it may be ?
Who has knowledge, who shall say ?
Yet we hope that from the bosom
Of our shaggy father Pan,
When the earth breaks into blossom
Richer from the dust of man,
Though the high Gods smite and slay us.
Though we come not whence we go,
As the host of Menelaus
Came there many years ago ;
Yet the self-same wind shall bear us
From the same departing place
Out across the Gulf of Saros
And the peaks of Samothrace ;
40
We shall pass in summer weather,
We shall come at eventide,
When the fells stand up together
And all quiet things abide ;
Mixed with cloud and wind and river,
Sun-distilled in dew and rain,
One with Cumberland for ever
We shall go not forth again.
4"N0WELL OXLAND.
3S
The Soldier
T F I should die, think only this of me :
-*• That there 's some comer of a foreign field
That is for ever England. There shall be
In that rich earth a richer dust concealed ;
A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware,
Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam,
A body of England's, breathing English air,
Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home.
And think, this heart, all evil shed away,
A pulse in the eternal mind, no less
Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given ;
Her sights and sounds ; dreams happy as her day ;
And laughter, learnt of friends ; and gentleness.
In hearts at peace, under an English heaven.
-f Rupert Brooke.
VALOUR AND VISION
39
Rupert Brooke
LJ E 'S gone.
•*■•*• I do not understand.
I only know
That as he turned to go
And waved his hand
In his young eyes a sudden glory shone :
And I was dazzled by a sunset glow,
And he was gone.
Wilfrid Wilson Gibson.
40
Galltpoli
Qui procul hinc ante diem perierunt.
YE unforgotten, that for a great dream died,
Whose failing sense darkened on peaks unwon,
Whose souls went forth upon the wine-dark tide
To seas beyond the sun.
Far off, far off, but ours and England's yet,
Now she has conquered ! Live again and let
The clamouring trumpets break oblivion !
Not as we dreamed, nor as you strove to do.
The strait is cloven, the crag is made our own ;
The salt grey herbs have withered over you.
The stars of Spring gone down.
And your long loneliness has lain unstirred
By touch of home, unless some migrant bird
Flashed eastward from the white cliffs to the brown.
42
I9IS
Hard by the nameless dust of Argive men,
Remembered and remote, like theirs of Troy,
Your sleep has been, nor can ye wake again
To any cry of joy ;
Summers and snows have melted on the waves,
And past the noble silence of your graves
The merging waters narrow and deploy.
But not in vain, not all in vain, thank God
All that you were and all you might have been
Was given to the cold effacing sod,
Unstrewn with garlands green ;
The valour and the vision that were yours
Lie not with broken spears and fallen towers,
With glories perishable of all things seen.
Children of one dear land and every sea,
At last fulfilment comes — the night is o'er ;
Now, as at Samothrace, swift Victory,
Walks wingM on the shore ;
And England, deathless Mother of the dead,
Gathers, with lifted eyes and unbowed head,
Her silent sons into her arms once more.
Dorothy Margaret Stuart.
From ' fF' Beach
THE Isle of Imbros, set in turquoise blue.
Lies to the westward ; on the eastern side
The purple hills of Asia fade from view,
And rolling battleships at anchor ride.
White flocks of cloud float by, the sunset glows,
And dipping gulls fleck a slow-waking sea,
Where dim steel-shadowed forms with foaming bows
Wind up the Narrows towards Gallipoli.
43
VALOUR AND VISION
No colour breaks this tongue of barren land
Save where a group of huddled tents gleams white ;
Before me ugly shapes like spectres stand,
And wooden crosses cleave the waning light.
Now the sky gardeners speed the hurrying day
And sow the plains of night with silver grain ;
So shall this transient havoc fade away
And the proud cape be beautiful again.
Laden with figs and olives, or a freight
Of purple grapes, tanned singing men shall row,
Chanting wild songs of how Eternal Fate
Withstood that fierce invasion long ago.
Geoffrey Dearmer.
42
Farewell to Anzac
/^H, hump your swag and leave, lads, the ships are in
^-^ the bay ;
We've got our marching orders now, it 's time to come
away;
And a long good-bye to Anzac beach where blood has
flowed in vain.
For we're leaving it, leaving it — game to fight again !
But some there are will never quit that bleak and bloody
shore,
And some that marched and fought with us will fight and
march no more ;
Their blood has bought till judgement day the slopes
they stormed so well.
And we're leaving them, leaving them, sleeping where they
fell!
44
(Leaving them, leaving them, the bravest and the best ;
Leaving them, leaving them, and maybe glad to rest !
We've done our best with yesterday, to-morrow 's still our
own —
But we're leaving them, leaving them, sleeping all alone !)
Ay, they are gone beyond it all, the praising and the
blame,
And many a man may win renown, but none more fair
a fame ;
They showed the world Australia's lads knew well the
way to die,
And we're leaving them, leaving them, quiet where they
liel
(Leaving them, leaving tliem, sleeping where they died ;
Leaving them, leaving them, in their glory and their
pride —
Round them sea and barren land, over them the sky.
Oh, we're leaving them, leaving them, quiet where they
lie !)
C. Fox Smith.
43
British Merchant Service, ipif
OH, down by Millwall Basin as I went the other day,
I met a slapper that I knew, and to him I did say :
' Now what 's the cargo, captain, that brings you up this
way ?'
' Oh, I've been up and down (he said) and round about
also . . .
From Sydney to the Skager-rack, and Kiel to Callao . . .
With a leaking steam-pipe all the way to Califom-i-o. . . .
45
VALOUR AND VISION
' With pots and pans and ivory fans and every kind of
thing,
Rails and nails and cotton bales and sewer-pipes and
string —
But now I'm through with cargoes, and I'm here to serve
the King !
' And if it 's sweeping mines (to which my fancy somewhat
leans)
Or hanging out with booby traps for the skulking sub-
marines . . .
I'm here to do my blooming best and give the beggars
beans!
' A rough job and a tough job is the best job for me.
And what or where I don't much care, I'll take what it
may be.
For a tight place is the right place when it 's foul weather
at sea ! '
There 's not a port he doesn't know from Melbourne to
New York ;
He's as hard as a lump of harness-beef and as salt as
pickled pork ;
And . . . he'll stand by a wreck in a murdering gale, and
count it part of his work !
He 's the terror of the foc's'le when he heals its various
ills
With turpentine and mustard leaves and poultices and pills . . .
But he knows the sea like tlie palm of his hand, as a
shepherd knows the hills.
46
He'll spin you yarns from dawn to dark . . . and half of
'em are true !
He swears in a score of languages, and maybe talks in
two ! . . .
And he'll lower a boat in a hurricane to save a drowning
crew!
A rough job or a tough job — he 's handled two or three,
And what or where he won't much care, nor ask what the
risk may be . . .
For a tight place is the right place when there's wild
weather at sea !
C. Fox Smith.
44
Kyes in the Air
OUR guns are a league behind us, our target a mile
below,
And there 's never a cloud to blind us from the haunts of
our lurking foe —
Sunk pit whence his shrapnel tore us, support-trench crest-
concealed.
As clear as the charts before us, his ramparts lie revealed.
His panicked watchers spy us, a droning threat in the void ;
Their whistling shells outfly us — puff upon puff, deployed
Across the green beneath us, across the flanking gray,
In fume and fire to sheath us and baulk us of our prey.
Below, beyond, above her,
Their iron web is spun :
Flicked but unsnared we hover,
Edged planes against the sun :
Eyes in the air above his lair.
The hawks that guide the gun !
47
VALOUR AND VISION
No word from earth may reach us, save, white against the
ground.
The strips outspread to teach us whose ears are deaf to
sound :
But down the winds that sear us, athwart our engine's
shriek,
We send — and know they hear us, the ranging guns we
speak.
Our visored eyeballs show us their answering pennant,
broke
Eight thousand feet below us, a whorl of flame-stabbed
smoke —
The burst that hangs to guide us, while numbed gloved
fingers tap
From wireless key beside us the circles of the map.
Line — target — short or over —
Come, plain as clock hands run.
Words from the birds that hover,
Unblinded, tail to sun ;
Words out of air to range them fair,
From hawks that guide the gun !
Your flying shells have failed you, your landward guns are
dumb:
Since earth hath naught availed you, these skies be open !
Come,
Where, wild to meet and mate you, flame in their beaks
for breath,
Black doves! the white hawks wait you on the wind-
tossed boughs of death.
These boughs be cold without you, our hearts are hot for
this.
Our wings shall beat about you, our scorching breath shall
kiss;
Till, fraught with that we gave you, fulfilled of our desire.
You bank — too late to save you from biting beaks of fire —
48
19 15
Turn sideways from your lover,
Shudder and swerve and run,
Tilt ; stagger ; and plunge over
Ablaze against the sun :
Doves dead in air, who clomb to dare
The hawks that guide the gun !
Gilbert Frankau.
Before the Assault
T F thro' this roar o' the guns one prayer may reach Thee,
■*■ Lord of all Life, whose mercies never sleep,
Not in our time, not now, Lord, we beseech Thee
To grant us peace. The sword has bit too deep.
We may not rest. We hear the wail of mothers
Mourning the sons who fill some nameless grave :
Past us, in dreams, the ghosts march of our brothers
Who were most valiant . . . whom we could not save.
We may not rest. What though our eyes be holden,
In sleep we see dear eyes yet wet with tears,
And locks that once were, oh, so fair and golden.
Grown grey in hours more pitiless than years.
We see all fair thmgs fouled — homes love's hands builded
Shattered to dust beside their withered vines,
Shattered the towers that once Thy sunsets gilded,
And Christ struck yet again within His shrines.
Over them hangs the dust of death, beside them
The dead lie countless — and the foe laughs still ;
We may not rest, while those cruel mouths deride them.
We, who were proud, yet could not work Thy will.
49 E
VALOUR AND VISION
We have failed — we have been more weak than these
betrayers —
In strength or in faith we have failed ; our pride was
vain.
How can we rest, who have not slain the slayers ?
What peace for us, who have seen Thy children slain ?
Hark, the roar grows . . . the thunders reawaken —
We ask one thing, Lord, only one thing now :
Hearts high as theirs, who went to death unshaken,
Courage like theirs to make and keep their vow.
To stay not till these hosts whom mercies harden,
Who know no glory save of sword and fire,
Find in our fire the splendour of Thy pardon,
Meet from our steel the mercy they desire. . . .
Then to our children there shall be no handing
Of fates so vain — of passions so abhorr'd . . .
But Peace . . . the Peace which passeth understanding . . .
Not in our time . . . but in their time, O Lord.
•i- R. E. Vernkde.
46
MacleocTs Lament
ALLAN Ian 6g Macleod of Raasay,
Treasure of mine, lies yonder dead in Loos,
His body unadorned by Highland raiment,
Trammelled for glorious hours, in Saxon trews.
Never man before of all his kindred
Went so apparelled to the burial knowe.
But with the pleated tartan for his shrouding.
The bonnet on his brow.
50
My grief! that Allan should depart so sadly,
When no wild mountain pipe his bosom wrung,
With no one of his race beside his shoulder,
Who knew his history or spake his tongue.
Ah ! lonely death and drear for darling Allan ;
Before his ghost had taken wings and gone,
Loud would he cry in Gaelic to his gallants,
' Children of storm, press on ! '
Beside him, when he fell there in his beauty,
Macleods of all the islands should have died ;
Brave hearts his English 1 — but they could not fathom
To what old deeps the voice of Allan cried ;
When in that strange French countryside war-battered,
Far from the creeks of home and hills of heath,
A boy, he kept the old tryst of his people
With the dark girl Death.
Oh, Allan Ian 6g ! Oh, Allan aluinn !
Sore is my heart remembering the past,
And you of Raasay's ancient gentle children
The farthest-wandered, kindliest, and last.
It should have been the brave dead of the Islands
That heard ring o'er their tombs your battle-cry,
To shake them from their sleep again, and quicken
Peaks of Torridon and Skye !
Gone like the mist, the brave Macleods of Raasay,
Far forth from fortune, sundered from their lands,
And now the last grey stone of Castle Raasay,
Lies desolate and levelled with the sands ;
But pluck the old isle from its roots deep planted
Where tides cry coronach round the Hebrides,
And it will bleed of the Macleods lamented.
Their loves and memories !
Neil Munro.
51 E 2
VALOUR AND VISION
Back to Rest
{^Composed •while marching to Rest Camp after severe
fghting at Loos.")
A LEAPING wind from England,
The skies without a stain,
Clean cut against the morning
Slim poplars after rain.
The foolish noise of sparrows
And starlings in a wood —
After the grime of battle
We know that these are good.
Death whining down from Heaven,
Death roaring from the ground,
Death stinking in the nostril,
Death shrill in every sound,
Doubting we charged and conquered —
Hopeless we struck and stood.
Now when the fight is ended
We know that it was good.
We that have seen the strongest
Cry like a beaten child.
The sanest eyes unholy,
The cleanest hands defiled.
We that have known the heart blood
Less than the lees of wine,
We that have seen men broken.
We know man is divine.
+ William Noel Hodgson.
52
191 5
48
After Laos
(Cafe Pierre Le Blanc, Nouex-Ies-Mines, Michaelmas
Eve, ipij.)
"^77" AS it only yesterday
^^ Lusty comrades marched away ?
Now they're covered up with clay.
Seven glasses used to be
Called for six good mates and me —
Now we only call for three.
Little crosses neat and white,
Looking lonely every night,
Tell of comrades killed in fight.
Hearty fellows they have been,
And no more will they be seen
Drinking wine in Nouex-les-Mines.
Lithe and supple lads were they,
Marching merrily away —
Was it only yesterday ?
Patrick MacGill.
49
A Sonnet
WHEN you see millions of the mouthless dead
Across your dreams in pale battalions go,
Say not soft things as other men have said,
That you'll remember. For you need not so.
Give them not praise. For, deaf, how should they know
It is not curses heaped on each gashed head ?
Nor tears. Their blind eyes see not your tears flow.
Nor honour. It is easy to be dead.
S3
VALOUR AND VISION
Say only this, ' They are dead '. Then add thereto,
' Yet many a better one has died before '.
Then, scanning all the o'ercrowded mass, should you
Perceive one face that you loved heretofore.
It is a spook. None wears the face you knew.
Great death has made all his for evermore,
+ Charles Hamilton Sorley.
SO
The Question
1 WONDER if the old cow died or not.
Gey bad she was the night I left, and sick.
Dick reckoned she would mend. He knows a lot —
At least he fancies so himself, does Dick.
Dick knows a lot. But maybe I did wrong
To leave the cow to him, and come away.
Over and over like a silly song
These words keep bumming in my head all day.
And all I think of, as I face the foe
And take my lucky chance of being shot.
Is this — that if I'm hit, I'll never know
Till Doomsday if the old cow died or not,
Wilfrid Wilson Gibson.
Zepp Days
A Roundel.
TN London town the lights are low,
*■ And all ways are adventurous grown.
For fearfully the people go
In London town.
54
I9IS
The red lights flicker dancing down,
The white lights pass you ere you know,
Like fairy lanterns, tossed and blown
Tumultuously to and fro ;
While in a fuller glory shown
The moon shines down on old Soho
In London town.
P. H. B. LvoN.
A 'thanksgiving
BEFORE the winter's haunted nights are o'er,
I thankfully rejoice that stars look down
Above the darkened streets, and I adore
The Heavens in London Town.
The Heavens, beneath which Alfred stood, when he
Built ramparts by the tide against his foes.
The skies men loved, when in eternity
The dreamlike Abbey rose ;
The heavens, whose glory has not known increase
Since Raleigh swaggered home by lantern-light.
And Shakespeare looking upwards, knew the peace,
The cool deep peace of night.
Under these Heavens brave Wesley rose betimes
To preach ere daybreak to the tender soul,
And in the heart of Keats, the starry rhymes
Roiled, and for ever roll.
I too have walked with them the heavenly ways —
Tracing the sweet embroideries of the sky.
And I shall not forget, when arcs shall blaze,
And all the lights are high.
Edward Shillito.
55
VALOUR AND VISION
If we return
{Rondeau.)
IF we return, will England be
Just England still to you and me —
The place where we must earn our bread ?
We, who have walked among the dead,
And watched the smile of agony,
And seen the price of Liberty,
Which we have taken carelessly
From other hands. Nay, we shall dread :
If we return.
Dread lest we hold blood-guiltily
The things that men have died to free.
Oh, English fields shall blossom red
For all the blood that has been shed,
By men whose guardians are we,
If we return.
F. W. Harvey.
7 have a Rendezvous with Death . . .
HAVE a rendezvous with Death
At some disputed barricade.
When Spring comes back with rustling shade
And apple-blossoms fill the air —
I have a rendezvous with Death
When Spring brings back blue days and fair.
It may be he shall take my hand
And lead me into his dark land
And close my eyes and quench my breath —
It may be I shall pass him still.
I
I9IS
I have a rendezvous with Death
On some scarred slope of battered hill,
When Spring comes round again this year
And the first meadow-flowers appear.
God knows 'twere better to be deep
Pillowed in silk and scented down,
Where love throbs out in blissful sleep,
Pulse nigh to pulse, and breath to breath,
Where hushed awakenings are dear . . .
But I've a rendezvous with Death
At midnight in some flaming town.
When Spring trips north again this year,
And I to my pledged word am true,
I shall not fail that rendezvous.
-i- Alan Seeger.
Sons
I
WE have sent them forth
To Christ's own rood ;
Their feet are white
On the fields of blood,
And they must slake
Their young desire
In wells of death
And pits of fire.
The red cock crows
And the grey cock crows.
And there is red
On Flanders' snows ;
And sun-scorched sand
And thirsty clay
Drink a red spilth
By Suvla Bay.
57
VALOUR AND VISION
And where Azizeah's
Turrets gleam,
And Tigris glitters.
Like a dream,
Through nights of scent
And tinkling sounds.
Sleep rose-white dead
With rose-red wounds.
I saw the Shadow
Count the fair
Sum of his takings ;
Them that were
Children in years
When they were sped,
And now are mighty
Being dead.
Like galaxies
Of stars, they shone
In the great places
They have won ;
He sets them there
No sting hath he,
And his is not
The Victory.
And whom he spared
I saw return,
Ambassadors
From his brave bourne —
Strong with the wisdom
Of the Wars,
Bright from the camps
Of Conquerors.
T. W. H. Crosland.
58
I9I5
With Christ in Flanders
"^TTE had forgotten You, or very nearly —
'^ You did not seem to touch us very nearly —
Of course we thought about You now and then :
Especially in any time of trouble —
But we are very ordinary men.
And there were always other things to think of —
There 's lots of things a man has got to think of —
His work, his home, his pleasure and his wife :
And so we only thought of You on a Sunday —
Sometimes, perhaps, not even on a Sunday —
Because there 's always lots to fill one's life.
And all the while, in street, or lane, or by-way —
In country lane, in city street, or by-way —
You walked among us and we did not see.
Your feet were bleeding as You walked our pavements-
How did we miss Your Footprints on our pavements ?
Can there be other folk as blind as we ?
Now we remember : over here in Flanders —
(It isn't strange to think of You in Flanders) —
This hideous warfare seems to make things clear.
We never thought about You much in England —
But now that we are far away from England
We have no doubts, we know that You are here.
You helped to pass the jest along the trenches —
Where in cold blood we waited in the trenches —
You touched its ribaldry and made it fine.
You stood beside us in our pain and weakness —
We're glad to think You understand our weakness —
Somehow it seems to help us not to whine.
59
VALOUR AND VISION
We think about You kneeling in the Garden —
Ah ! God ! the agony of that dread Garden —
We know You prayed for us upon the Cross.
If anything could make us glad to bear it —
'T would be the knowledge that You willed to bear it-
Pain — death — the uttermost of human loss.
Though we forgot You — You will not forget us —
We feel so sure that You will not forget us —
But stay with us until this dream is past.
And so we ask for courage, strength and pardon —
Especially, I think we ask for pardon —
And that You'll stand beside us at the last.
L, W.
Requie
S7
iescant
IN lonely watches night by night
Great visions burst upon my sight,
For down the stretches of the sky
The hosts of dead go marching by.
Strange ghostly banners o'er them float,
Strange bugles sound an awful note,
And all their faces and their eyes
Are lit with starlight from the skies.
The anguish and the pain have passed
And peace hath come to them at last,
But in the stern looks linger still
The iron purpose and the will.
Dear Christ, who reign'st above the flood
Of human tears and human blood,
A weary road these men have trod,
O house them in the home of God.
F. G. Scott.
60
How long, O Lord?
TLJOW long, O Lord, how long, before the flood
*■ •*• Of crimson-welling carnage shall abate ?
From sodden plains in West and East, the blood
Of kindly men steams up in mists of hate.
Polluting Thy clean air ; and nations great
In reputation of the arts that bind
The world with hopes of heaven, sink to the state
Of brute barbarians, whose ferocious mind
Gloats o'er the bloody havoc of their kind,
Not knowing love or mercy. Lord, how long
Shall Satan in high places lead the blind
To battle for the passions of the strong ?
Oh, touch Thy children's hearts, that they may know
Hate their most hateful, pride their deadliest foe.
•I* Robert Palmer.
61
1916
Fall of K^t-el-iAmara
(?
'Battle of Jutland
<^
3^w Quinea
South- West iAfrica
East Africa
The Summer Offensive-
The Somme
Thiepval
T>elville Wood
Tozieres
Combles
The eAncre
"Beaumont Hamel
The Clearing of Sinai-
El <^rish
3\/[agdaba
63
I 9 I 6
;p
At the Wars
NOW that I am ta'en away,
And may not see another day,
What is it to my eye appears ?
What' sound rings in my stricken ears ?
Not even the voice of any friend
Or eyes beloved-world-without-end,
But scenes and sounds of the country-side
In far England across the tide :
An upland field when Spring 's begun,
Mellow beneath the evening sun. . . .
A circle of loose and lichened wall
Over which seven red pines fall. . . .
An orchard of wizen blossoming trees
Wherein the nesting chaffinches
Begin again the self-same song
All the late April day-time long. . . .
Paths that lead a shelving course
Between the chalk scarp and the gorse
By English downs ; and, O ! too well
I hear the hidden, clanking bell
Of wandering sheep. ... I see the brown
Twilight of the huge empty down. . . .
Soon blotted out ! for now a lane
Glitters with warmth 'of May-time rain,
And on a shooting briar I see
A yellow bird who sings to me.
65
VALOUR AND VISION
O yellow-hammer, once I heard
Thy brief song when no other bird
Could to my sunk heart comfort bring ;
But now I would not have thee sing,
So sharp thy note is with the pain
Of England I may not see again !
Yet sing thy song : there answereth
Deep in me a voice which saith :
' The gorse upon the twilit down.
The English loam so sunset brown,
The bowed pines and the sheep-bells' clamour.
The wet, lit lane and the yellow-hammer.
The orchard and the chaffinch song.
Only to the Brave belong.
And he shall lose their joy for aye
If their price he cannot pay,
Who shall find them dearer far
Enriched by blood after long War.'
Robert Nichols.
60
From Generation to Generation
T ONG since the sorrows of the nightingales
*^ Came throbbing through the night to lattices
Where women watched whose amours had made rich
The days of soldiers now gone out in mail
And carven plate, with battleaxe and bow,
Faring and fallen, or happily to be
Home on some twilight road, a lonely spear. . . .
Long since, that so these ladies and their loves,
And casements looking on to battlefields
Where still a loyal crest might wear a rose,
66
I 9 I 6
Have perished, or grown fabulous, all song,
Or mist of mummers, or a crazy tale
For those book-learned fools who miss the world. . . .
There is a wood in Warwickshire to-day.
Haunted and hushed with midnight nightingales —
summer song. And there are fields of France,
And fields, O love, by many an alien sea. . . .
John Drinkwater.
6l
Liebestod
T WHO, conceived beneath another star,
■*■ Had been a prince and played with life, instead
Have been its slave, an outcast exiled far
From the fair things my faith has merited.
My ways have been the ways that wanderers tread
And those that make romance of poverty —
Soldier, I shared the soldier's board and bed.
And Joy has been a thing more oft to me
Whispered by summer wind and summer sea
Than known incarnate in the hours it lies
All warm against our hearts and laughs into our eyes.
1 know not if in risking my best days
I shall leave utterly behind me here
This dream that lightened me through lonesome ways
And that no disappointment made less dear ;
Sometimes I think that, where the hilltops rear
Their white entrenchments back of tangled wire,
Behind the mist Death only can make clear,
There, like Brunhilde ringed with flaming fire.
Lies what shall ease my heart's immense desire :
There, where beyond the horror and the pain
Only the brave shall pass, only the strong attain.
•I' Alan Seeger.
67 F 2
VALOUR AND VISION
62
Who Sleeps?
MIDNIGHT and England ; in the curtained room
Shadow upon grey shadow creeps
Till black, all-conquering, dominates the gloom
And darkness cries — who sleeps ?
Who sleeps — the bride ? She girt him for the fight
Gay when her happy warrior went,
Now empty arms she stretches to the night
With passionate lament.
Who sleeps — the old man ? Up the wind-swept street
He heard a brown battalion come,
And all night long his weary, worn old feet
Keep measure with the drum.
Who sleeps — the mother ? Immemorial throes
Torture her breast and laboured breath,
This hour, it may be, her beloved goes
Undaunted into death.
Who sleeps — the barren women, for her breast
Passion, nor pain, nor rapture stirs ?
She wakes, and watches for the first and best,
A thousand sons are hers.
On desolate far-off fields, who sleep \
We know not, but through summers green
We know their rigid hands that hold, will keep
The flag of England clean.
Who sleeps ? Faint and foresworn, no sentinel
Between the trenches snarling lips ;
Not one on guard where moonlit waters swell
Under the battleships.
Nor he that finds, sore wounded, all but slain,
Fevered from dreams of field and camp,
Cathedral like the solemn aisles of pain.
The woman and the lamp.
68
I 9 I 6
They sleep not for whom furnace smoke-clouds roll
Nor they who forge for England's care,
Armour laid on the anvil of her soul
And hammered out with prayer.
Who sleeps — your God on His eternal hill,
And Sion falls and Rachel weeps ?
Captain of hosts and our Salvation still,
He slumbers not nor sleeps.
Eleanor Alexander,
Home I'houghts in Laventie
GREEN gardens in Laventie !
Soldiers only know the street
Where the mud is churned and splashed about
By battle-wending feet ;
And yet beside one stricken house there is a glimpse of
grass.
Look for it when you pass.
Beyond the church whose pitted spire
Seems balanced on a strand
Of swaying stone and tottering brick
Two roofless ruins stand.
And here behind the wreckage where the back wall should
have been
We found a garden green.
The grass was never trodden on,
The little path of gravel
Was overgrown with celandine,
No other folk did travel
Along its weedy surface, but the nimble-footed mouse
Running from house to house.
69
VALOUR AND VISION
So all among the vivid blades
Of soft and tender grass
We lay, nor heard the limber wheels
That pass and ever pass,
In noisy continuity until their stony rattle
Seems in itself a battle.
At length we rose up from this ease
Of tranquil happy mind.
And searched the garden's little length
A fresh pleasaunce to find ;
And there, some yellow daffodils and jasmine hanging high
Did rest the tired eye.
The fairest and most fragrant
Of the many sweets we found.
Was a little bush of Daphne flower
Upon a grassy mound,
And so thick were the blossoms set, and so divine the scent
That we were well content.
Hungry for Spring I bent my head,
The perfume fanned my face,
And all my soul was dancing
In that little lovely place,
Dancing with a measured step from wrecked and shattered
towns
Away . . . upon the Downs.
I saw green banks of daffodil.
Slim poplars in the breeze,
Great tan-brown hares in gusty March
A-courting on the leas ;
And meadows with their glittering streams, and silver
scurrying dace,
Home — what a perfect place !
+ Edward Wyndham Teknant.
70
1 g I 6
64
The Gift
AT ARCHING on Tanga, marching the parched plain
■*■'■•■ Of wavering spear-grass past Pangani river,
England came to me — me who had always ta'en
But never given before — England, the giver.
In a vision of three poplar frees that shiver
On still evenings of summer, after rain,
By Slapton Ley, where reed-beds start and quiver
When scarce a ripple moves the upland grain.
Then I thanked God that now I had suffered pain
And, as the parched plain, thirst, and lain awake
Shivering all night through till cold daybreak :
In that I count these sufferings my gain
And her acknowledgement. Nay, more, would fain
Suffer as many more for her sweet sake.
Francis Brett Young.
Home Thoughts
'T'HE hot red rocks of Aden
-»■ Stand from their burnished sea ;
The bitter sands of Aden
Lie shimmering in their lee.
We have no joy of battle,
No honour here is won ;
Our little fights are nameless,
With Turk and sand and gun.
East and West the greater wars
Swirl widely up and down ;
Forgotten here and sadly
We hold the port and town.
71
VALOUR AND VISION
The great round trees of England
Hurt us with vain desire ;
The little wayside cottage,
The clanging blacksmith's fire.
The salt dry sands of Aden,
The bitter sun-cursed shore ;
Forget us not in England,
We cannot serve you more.
Anon.
66
Lord Kitchener
UNFLINCHING hero, watchful to foresee
And face thy country's peril wheresoe'er.
Directing war and peace with equal care,
Till by long toil ennobled thou wert he
Whom England call'd and bade ' Set ray arm free
To obey my will and save my honour fair ' —
What day the foe presumed on her despair
And she herself had trust in none but thee.
Among Herculean deeds the miracle
That massed the labour of ten years in one
Shall be thy monument. Thy work is done
Ere we could thank thee ; and the high sea swell
Surgeth unheeding where thy proud ship fell
By the lone Orkneys at the set of sun.
Robert Bridges.
72
67
The Halt
11 jf ARK time in front ! Rear fours Cover ! Company
IVl —halt!
Order arms! Stand at — easel Stand easy' A sudden
hush:
And then the talk began with a mighty nish —
' You weren't ever in step — The sergeant. — It wasn't my
fault —
Well, the Lord be praised at least for a ten minutes' halt.'
We sat on a gate and watched them easing and shifting ;
Out of the distance a faint, keen breath came drifting,
From the sea behind the hills, and the hedges were salt.
Where do you halt now ? Under what hedge do you lie ?
Where the tall poplars are fringing the white French
roads I
And smoke I have not seen discolours the foreign sky ?
Is the company resting there as we rested together
Stamping its feet and readjusting its loads
And looking with wary eyes at the drooping weather ?
Edward Shanks.
68
The Old Way
THERE 'S a sea that lies uncharted far beyond the
setting sun,
And a gallant Fleet was sailing there whose fighting days
are done,
Sloop and Galleon, Brig and Pinnace, all the rigs you
never met,
Fighting Frigate, grave Three-decker, with their snowy
canvas set ;
73
VALOUR AND VISION
Dozed and dreamed, when, on a sudden, ev'ry sail began
to swell,
For the breeze has spoken strangers, with a stirring tale to
tell,
And a thousand eager voices flung the challenge out to
sea:
' Come they hither in the old way, in the only way that 's
free ? '
And the flying Breeze called softly : ' In the old way,
Through the winters and the waters of the North,
They have w^ted, ah the waiting, in the old way.
Strong and patient, from the Pentlands to the Forth.
There was fog to blind and baffle off the headlands.
There were gales to beat the worst that ever blew.
But they took it, as they found it, in the old way.
And I know it often helped to think of you.'
'Twas a Frigate, under stun-sails, as she gently gathered
way
Spoke in jerks, like all the Frigates, who have little time
to stay :
' We'd to hurry, under Nelson, thank my timbers I was
tough.
For he worked us as he loved us, and he never had enough
Are the English mad as ever ? were the Frigates just as
few ?
(Will their sheets be always stranding, ere the rigging 's
rove anew ?)
Just as Saxon slow at starting, just as weirdly wont to
win ?
Had they Frigates out and watching ? Did they pass the
signals in ? '
And the laughing Breeze made answer : ' In the old
way;
You should see the little cruisers spread and fly,
74
I 9 I 6
Peering over the horizon, in the old way,
And a seaplane up and wheeling'in^the^sky.
When the wireless snapped " The enemy is sighted ",
If his accents were comparatively new,
Why, the sailor men were cheering, in the old way.
So I naturally smiled, and thouglit of you.'
Then a courtly voice and stately from a tall Three-decker
came —
She'd the manners of a monarch and a story in her name ;
' We'd a winter gale at even, and my shrouds are aching
yet.
It was more than time for reefing when the upper sails
were set.
So we chased in woful weather, till we closed in failing
. light.
Then we fought them, as we caught them, just as Hawke
had bid us fight ;
And we swept the sea by sunrise, clear and free beyond
a doubt.
Was it thus the matter ended when the enemy was out ? '
Cried the Breeze : ' They fought and followed in the
old way.
For they raced to make a record all the while.
With a knot to veer and haul on, in the old way,
That had never even met the measured mile —
And the guns were making merry in the twilight,
That the enemy was victor may be true,
Still — he hurried into harboui' — in the old way —
And I wondered if he'd ever heard of you.'
Came a gruff and choking chuckle, and a craft as black as
doom
Lumbered laughing down to leeward, as the bravest gave
her room.
75
VALOUR AND VISION
' Set 'un blazin', good your Lordships, for the tide be
makin' strong,
Proper breeze to fan a fireship, set 'un drivin' out along !
'Tis the " Torch ", wi' humble duty, from Lord Howard
'board the "Ark"
We'm a laughin'-stock to Brixham, but a terror after dark,
Hold an' bilge anigh to burstin', pitch and sulphur, tar an'
all.
Was it so, my dear, they'm fashioned for my Lord High
Admiral ? '
Cried the Breeze : ' You'd hardly know it from the old
way
(Gloriana, did you waken at the fight ?)
Stricken shadows, scared and flying in the old way
From the swift destroying spectres of the night,
There were some that steamed and scattered south for
safety.
From the mocking western echo " Where be tu ? "
There were some that — got the message — in the old
way,
And the flashes in the darkness spoke of you.'
There's a wondrous Golden Harbour, far beyond the
setting sun.
Where a gallant ship may anchor when her fighting days
are done.
Free from tempest, rock and battle, toil and tumult safely
o'er,
Where the breezes murmur softly and there 's peace for
evermore.
They have climbed the last horizon, they are standing in
from sea.
And the Pilot makes the Haven where a ship is glad
to be :
76
I 9 I I
Comes at last the glorious greeting, strangely new and ages
old,
See the sober grey is shining like the Tudor green and
gold!
And the waiting jibs are hoisted, in the old way,
As the guns begin to thunder down the lines ;
Hear the silver trumpets calling, in the old way !
Over all the silken pennons float and shine.
' Did you voyage all unspoken, small and lonely ?
Or with fame, the happy fortune of the few ?
So you win the Golden Harbour, in the old way,
There's the old sea welcome waiting there for you.'
R. A. HopwooD.
69
Before Action
BY all the glories of the day
And the cool evening's benison.
By that last sunset touch that lay
Upon the hills when day was done,
By beauty lavishly outpoured
And blessings carelessly received,
By all the days that I have lived
Make me a soldier. Lord.
By all of all man's hopes and fears.
And all the wonders poets sing.
The laughter of unclouded years,
And every sad and lovely thing ;
By the romantic ages stored
With high endeavour that was his
By all his mad catastrophes
Make me a man, O Lord.
77
VALOUR AND VISION
I, that on my familiar hill
Saw with uncomprehending eyes
A hundred of Thy sunsets spill
Their fresh and sanguine sacrifice,
Ere the sun swings his noonday sword
Must say good-bye to all of this ; —
By all delights that I shall miss,
Help me to die, O Lord.
•i- William Noel Hodgson.
70
Battery moving up to a New Position
from Rest Camp: Dawn.
^J OT a sign of life we rouse
■*■ ^ In any square close-shuttered house
That flanks the road we amble down
Toward far trenches through the town.
The dark, snow-slushy, empty street . . .
Tingle of frost in brow and feet . . .
Horse-breath goes dimly up like smoke.
No sound but the smacking stroke
Of a sergeant flings each arm
Out and across to keep him warm,
And the sudden splashing crack
Of ice-pools broken by our track.
More dark houses, yet no sign
Of life. ... An axle's creak and whine . . .
The splash of hooves, the strain of trace . . .
Clatter : we cross the market place.
78
I 9 I 6
Deep quiet again, and on we lurch
Under the shadow of a church :
Its tower ascends, fog-wreathed and grim ;
Within its aisles a light burns dim. . . .
When, marvellous ! from overhead,
Like abrupt speech of one deemed dead,
Speech-moved by some Superior Will,
A bell tolls thrice and then is still.
And suddenly I know that now
The priest within, with downward brow.
Exalts the small round of the Host.
The server's tingling bell is lost
In clang of the greater overhead.
Peace like a wave descends, is spread,
While watch the peasants' reverent eyes. . .
The bell's boom trembles, hangs, and dies.
O people who bow down to see
The Miracle of Calvary,
The bitter and the glorious,
Bow down, bow down and pray for us.
Once more our anguished way we take
Toward our Golgotha, to make
For all our lovers sacrifice.
Again the troubled bell tolls thrice.
And slowly, slowly, lifted up
Dazzles the overflowing cup.
O worshipping, fond multitude.
Remember us too, and our blood.
79
VALOUR AND VISION
Turn hearts to us as we go by,
Salute those about to die,
Plead for them, the deep bell toll :
Their sacrifice must soon be whole.
Entreat you for such hearts as break
With the premonitory ache
Of bodies, whose feet, hands, and side.
Must soon be torn, pierced, crucified.
Sue for them and all of us
Who the world over suffer thus.
Who have scarce time for prayer indeed,
Who only march and die and bleed.
The town is left, the road leads on,
Bluely glaring in the sun,
Toward where in the sunrise gate
Death, honour, and fierce battle wait.
Robert Nichols.
71
From the Somme
IN other days I sang of simple things,
Of summer dawn, and summer noon and night.
The dewy grass, the dew-wet fairy rings,
The larks long golden flight.
Deep in the forest I made melody
While squirrels cracked their hazel nuts on high,
Or I would cross the wet sand to the sea
And sing to sea and sky.
80
1910
When came the silvered silence of the night
I stole to casements over scented lawns,
And softly sang of love and love's delight
To mute white marble fauns.
Oft in the tavern parlour I would sing
Of morning sun upon the mountain vine,
And, calling for a chorus, sweep the string
In praise of good red wine.
I played with all the toys the gods provide,
I sang my songs and made glad holiday.
Now I have cast my broken toys aside
And flung my lute away.
A singer once, I now am fain to weep.
Within my soul I feel strange music swell.
Vast chants of tragedy too deep — too deep
For my poor lips to tell.
•i" Leslie Coulson.
72
Lines written in Captivity
IN England the leaves are falling from chestnut and
beech and oak.
Where once 'mid mossgrown tree-trunks the ringing
echoes woke,
As one brought down a rocketing pheasant, stopped a
pigeon in its flight,
Or picked off a swerving woodcock as it sped into the
night.
8i G
VALOUR AND VISION
Oh for the smell of the mudflats when the autumn tide
runs low,
As over the darkening waters the plovers come and go ;
You can hear the whistling wigeon, see the teal as they
cross the moon,
And that ray of liquid silver — the splash of a diving
loon.
India too is calling, where the black buck graze on the
plain.
Where the peacock struts 'neath the banyan and the
partridge calls from the cane.
Where the jackal howls in the twilight and the flighting
pintail wheel.
Where the geese fly up from the river, and, circling light
on the gheel.
When the haunting smell of the wood-smoke hangs low
o'er the village street,
And the dust drifts gold in the sunset, stirred by the
children's feet,
When the kites swing low round the temple, and the
egrets fly from the stream.
Over the silent mangoes where a myriad fireflies gleam.
These things have I known and have loved them — the
heat the dust and the sweat.
The rainswept lonely marshes, the tang of dung-smoke, —
and yet
If I should no more feel them, nor quaff the breeze like
wine,
The memory at least is with me — for ever, for ever mine.
F, J. Patmore.
82
I 9 I 6
73
Magpies in Picardy
THE magpies in Picardy
Are more than I can tell.
They flicker down the dusty roads
And cast a magic spell
On the men who march through Picardy,
Through Picardy to Hell.
(The blackbird flies with panic,
The swallow goes like light,
The linches move like ladies,
The owl floats by at night ;
But the great and flashing magpie
He flies as artists might.)
A magpie in Picardy
Told me secret things —
Of the music in white feathers,
And the sunlight that sings
And dances in deep shadows —
He told me with his wings.
(The hawk is cruel and rigid.
He watches from a height ;
The rook is slow and sombre.
The robin loves to fight ;
But the great and flashing magpie
He flies as lovers might.)
He told me that in Picardy,
An age ago or more,
While all his fathers still were eggs.
These dusty highways bore
Brown singing soldiers marching out
Through Picafdy to war.
83 G 2
VALOUR AND VISION
He said that still through chaos
Works on the ancient plan,
And two things have altered not
Since first the world began —
The beauty of the wild green earth
And the bravery of man.
(For the sparrow flies unthinking
And quarrels in his flight ;
The heron trails his legs behind,
The lark goes out of sight ;
But the great and flashing magpie
He flies as poets might.)
•I'T. P. Cameron Wilson.
74
To T'ony — Aged Three
In Memory {T. P. C. W.)
GEMMED with white daisies was the great green
world
Your restless feet have pressed this long day through-
Come now and let me whisper to your dreams
A little song grown from my love of you.
There was a man once loved green fields like you,
He drew his knowledge from the wild birds' songs,
And he had praise for every beauteous thing.
And he had pity for all piteous wrongs. . . .
A lover of earth's forests — of her hills,
And brother to her sunlight — to her rain —
Man with a boy's fresh wonder. He was great
With greatness all too simple to explain.
84
He was a dreamer, and a poet, and brave
To face and hold what he alone found true.
He was a comrade of the old — a friend
To every little laughing child like you.
And when across the peaceful English land
Unhurt by war, the light is growing dim
And you remember by your shadowed bed
All those — the brave — you must remember him ;
And know it was for you who bear his name
And such as you that all his joy he gave,
His love of quiet fields, his youth, his life,
To win that heritage of peace you have.
Marjorie Wilson.
Nameless Men
AROUND me, when I wake or sleep,
Men strange to me their vigils keep ;
And some were boys but yesterday,
Upon the village green at play.
Their faces I shall never know ;
Like sentinels they come and go.
In grateful love I bend the knee
For nameless men who die for me.
Thpre is in earth or heaven no room
Where I may flee this dreadful doom.
For ever it is understood
I am a man redeemed by blood.
I must walk softly all my days
Down my redeemed and solemn ways.
Christ take the men I bring to Thee,
The men who watch and die for me.
Edward Shillito.
85
VALOUR AND VISION
76
Lamplight
WE planned to shake the world together, you and I
Being young, and very wise ;
Now in the light of the green shaded lamp
Almost I see your eyes
Light with the old gay laughter ; you and I
Dreamed greatly of an Empire in those days,
Setting our feet upon laborious ways.
And all you asked of fame
Was crossed swords in the Army List,
My Dear, against your name.
We planned a great Empire together, you and I,
Bound only by the sea ;
Now in the quiet of a chill Winter's night
Your voice comes hushed to me
Full of forgotten memories : you and I
Dreamed great dreams of our future in those days.
Setting our feet on undiscovered ways,
And all I asked of fame
A scarlet cross on my breast, my Dear,
For the swords by your name.
We shall never shake the world together, you and I,
For you gave your life away ;
And I think my heart was broken by the war,
Since on a summer day
You took the road we never spoke of: you and I
Dreamed greatly of an Empire in those days ;
You set your feet upon the Western ways
And have no need of fame —
There 's a scarlet cross on my breast, my Dear,
And a torn cross with your name.
May Wedderburn Cannan.
86
I 9 I 6
77
Fulfilment
WAS there love once ? I have forgotten her.
Was there grief once ? grief yet is mine.
Other loves I have, men rough, but men who stir
More grief, more joy than love of thee and thine.
Faces cheerful, fiiU of whimsical mirth,
Lined by the wind, burned by the sun ;
Bodies enraptured by the abounding earth,
As whose children we are brethren : one.
And any moment may descend hot death
To shatter limbs ! pulp, tear, blast
Beloved soldiers who love rough life and breath
Not less for dying faithful to the last.
O the fading eyes, the grimed face turned bony.
Oped mouth gushing, fallen head,
Lessening pressure of a hand shrunk, clammed, and stony !
O sudden spasm, release of the dead !
Was there love once ? I have forgotten her.
Was there grief once \ grief yet is mine.
O loved, living, dying, heroic soldier.
All, all, my joy, my grief, my love, are thine !
Robert Nichols.
87
VALOUR AND VISION
78
Two Fusiliers
AND have we done with War at last ?
Well, we've been lucky devils both,
And there 's no need of pledge or oath
To bind our lovely friendship fast,
By firmer stuff
Close bound enough.
By wire and wood and stake we're bound.
By Fricourt and by Festubert,
By whipping rain, by the sun's glare,
By all the misery and loud sound,
By a Spring day.
By Picard clay.
Show me the two so closely bound
As we, by the wet bond of blood,
By friendship, blossoming from mud,
By Death : we faced him, and we found
Beauty in Death,
In dead men breath.
Robert Graves.
79
The March
I HEARD a voice that cried, 'Make way for those who
died!'
And all the coloured crowd like ghosts at morning fled ;
And down the waiting road, rank after rank there strode.
In mute and measured march a hundred thousand dead.
88
1916
A hundred thousand dead, with firm and noiseless tread,
All shadowy-grey yet solid, with faces grey and ghast.
And by the house they went, and all their brows were bent
Straight forward ; and they passed, and passed, and passed,
and passed.
But O there came a place, and O there came a face.
That clenched my heart to see it, and sudden turned my
way;
And in the Face that turned I saw two eyes that burned,
Never-forgotten eyes, and they had things to say.
Like desolate stars they shone one moment, and were gone,
And I sank down and put my arms across my head.
And felt them moving past, nor looked to see the last,
In steady silent march, our hundred thousand dead.
J. C. Squire.
80
Dawn at Beaumont Hamel
THE long dark night is nearly done ;
A glow-worm green gleams in the eastern sky.
The first wan struggling courier of the sun ;
And in its pallid light the star-shells die.
But now the green is shot with crimson fire.
Which, paling, tinges all the sky with rose ;
The hoar-frost shines and glints upon the wire —
Sparkling diamonds that the Frost- King sows.
The men are struggling from their dark dug-outs.
How cold it is ! They'll soon serve out the rum.
' Stand to ! Turn out 1 ' The Serjeant-Major shouts ;
And thus another weary day has come.
•f R. B. Marriott- Watson.
89
I9I7
Recapture of ¥^t-el-<Amara
Entry into "Bagdad
Teronne
tArras
Vimy Tiidge
CMLessines
"Passchendaek
Cambrai
The Italian Campaign
Salonika
Macedonia
Battle of Beersheba
Surrender of Jaffa
Capture of Jerusalem
91
1917
8i
"The Dead to the Living
OYOU that still have rain and sun,
Kisses of children and of wife
And the good earth to tread upon,
And the mere sweetness that is life,
Forget not us, who gave all these
For something dearer, and for you.
Think in what cause we crossed the seas !
Remember, he who fails the Challenge
Fails us too.
Now in the hour that shows the strong —
The soul no evil powers affray —
Drive straight against embattled Wrong :
Faith knows but one, the hardest, way.
Endure ; the end is worth the throe.
Give, give, and dare ; and again dare !
On, to that Wrong's great overthrow.
We are with you, of you ; we the pain
And victory share,
Laurence Binyon.
93
VALOUR AND VISION
82
Mesopotamia
NOON—Madhij.
THE clouds are gathered and the wind blows, wet with
tears,
The River is ruffled grey,
And swept in a curve like a sinister steel blade
Tapering slimly away.
In the hand of Destiny this sword severs our years.
Sunders the light and shade.
DUSK—Falhja.
A long lean cloud, like a greyhound,
Chases a fading sun ;
The plain turns black, and the wave turns gold,
Then dark, and the day is done.
And the bats swing out in circles.
And the stars wake, one by one.
J. Griffyth Fairfax.
83
Sanniyat
THE souls of the young dead, the laurel-crowned,
Sure in the calm of their Olympian height.
Need not the tears of the dwellers in the night.
Losers and mourners we ; but they have found
A peak of silence in the seas of sound,
Above the dark a haven of soft light
Where Wrath and Death from memory and sight
Pass like the traces of an ancient wound.
94
19 17
To-day I walked where Death walked yesterday,
And felt him brooding on his bitter field :
The shameless sun displayed the battle's yield,
Earth, iron and men, all broken as they lay ;
But the dead live in Love's intenser ray,
And soon the sudden hurt of Death is healed,
J. Griffyth Fairfax.
84
Sir Stanley Maude
HAIL and farewell, across the clash of swords !
Hail and farewell, the laurels to the dust.
So soon returned, so bitterly ; farewell !
The dark clouds, sisters to the solemn hour,
Wait on thy passing, and the heavy air
Bears, as we bear our sorrows, silently
The leaden burden, and there is no voice — •
Mute, with bent heads, before the open grave.
We stand, and each one feels his pulses ache,
And his throat parches, and the unspoken grief
Closes an iron hand upon his heart.
Three times the volley strikes the solemn vault
Of that imprisoning arch, and piercing clear
The bugles cry upon the dead, ' Arise ! '
And thou shalt rise, yet we turn sadly away ;
The scarlet and blue pennants droop ; the night
Draws darkly on, and dawn, when dawn shall come,
Throws a drear light upon the Eastern sky.
And Dome and Minaret wake ghostly grey.
And in the palms a little wind goes sighing.
95
VALOUR AND VISION
Hail and farewell ; the laurels with the dust
Are levelled, but thou hast thy surer crown,
Peace, and immortal calm, the victory won ;
Somewhere serene thy watchful power inspires ;
Thou art a living purpose, being dead.
Fruitful of nobleness in lesser lives,
A guardian and a guide ; Hail and farewell !
J. Griffyth Fairfax.
St
The Forest of the Dead
. {^Bagdad Military Cemetery)
THERE are strange trees in that pale field
Of barren soil and bitter yield :
They stand without the city walls ;
Their nakedness is unconcealed.
Cross after cross, mound after mound.
And no flowers blossom but are bound,
The dying and the dead, in wreaths.
Sad crowns for kings of Underground.
The Forest of the Dead is still,
No song of birds can ever thrill
Among the sapless boughs that bear
No fruit, no flower, for good or ill.
The sun by day, the moon by night
Give terrible or tender light.
But night or day the forest stands
Unchanging, desolately bright.
With loving or unloving eye
Kinsman and alien pass them by :
Do the dead know, do the dead care,
Under the forest as they lie ?
96
I9I7
To each the tree above his head,
To each the sign in which is said . . .
' By this thou art to overcome ' :
Under this forest sleep no dead.
These, having life, gave life away :
Is God less generous than they ?
The spirit passes and is free :
Dust to the dust ; Death takes the clay.
J. Griffyth Fairfax.
86
In France
"THE silence of maternal hills
Is round me in my evening dreams ;
And round me music-making bills
And mingling waves of pastoral streams.
Whatever way I turn I find
The path is old unto me still.
The hills of home are in my mind,
And there I wander as I will.
•i" Francis Ledwidge.
87
The Ragged Stone
AS I was walking with my dear, my dear come back at
■last,
The shadow of the Ragged Stone fell on us as we passed :
And if the tale be true they tell about the Ragged Stone
I'll not be walking with my dear next year, nor yet alone.
97 H
VALOUR AND VISION
And we're to wed come Michaelmas, my lovely dear and 1 ;
And we're to have a little house, and do not want to die.
But all the folk are fighting in the lands across the sea,
Because the King and counsellors went mad in Germany.
Because the King and counsellors went mad, my love and I
May never have a little house before we come to die.
And if the ta!e be true they tell about the Ragged Stone
I'll not be walking with my dear next year, nor yet alone.
Wilfrid Wilson Gibson.
88
Dreamers
SOLDIERS are citizens of death's grey land.
Drawing no dividend from time's to-morrows.
In the great hour of destiny they stand,
Each with his feuds, and jealousies, and sorrows.
Soldiers are sworn to action ; they must win
Some flaming, fatal climax with their lives.
Soldiers are dreamers ; when the guns begin
They think of firelit homes, clean beds, and wives.
I see them in foul dug-outs, gnawed by rats.
And in the ruined trenches, lashed with rain,
Dreaming of things they did with balls and bats.
And mocked by hopeless longing to regain
Bank-holidays, and picture shows, and spats,
And going to the office in the train.
Siegfried Sassoon.
98
1917
89
'Tell me. Stranger
' I 'ELL me, Stranger, is it true
■*■ There is magic happening,
Are all the dappled fields of Kew
Bowing to their Lord the Spring ?
Are the bluebells chaste aud mute
Dancing in each dale and hollow
Dew-sprinked, with a glad salute
To omnipotent Apollo ?
Tell me, do the feathered creatures
Flutter as in days of yore,
What are the ' distinctive features '
Of the Swallow's Flying Corps ?
Here there is no magic, Stranger,
Save within our merry souls —
For some wanton god in anger
Punches earth with gaping holes.
Yet the stifled land is showing
Here and there a touch of grace,
And the marshalled clouds are blowing
Through the aerodromes of space.
Hate is strong, but Love is stronger,
And the world shall wake to birth
When the touch of man no longer
Stays the touch of God from Earth.
Tell me, Stranger, is it true
There is magic happening,
Are all the dappled fields of Kew
Bowing to their Lord the Spring ?
Geoffrey Dearmer.
99 H 2
VALOUR AND VISION
To a Bulldog
{IV. H. S., Capt. {Acting Major) R.F.A; killed
April Z2, ipiy.)
WE sha'n't see Willy any more, Mamie,
He won't be coming any more :
He came back once and again and again,
But he won't get leave any more.
We looked from the window and there was his cab,
And we ran downstairs like a streak,
And he said ' Hullo, you bad dog ', and you crouched to
the floor.
Paralysed to hear him speak,
And then let fly at his face and his chest
Till I had to hold you down,
While he took off his cap and his gloves and his coat
And his bag and his thonged Sam Browne.
We went upstairs to the studio,
The three of us, just as of old.
And you lay down and I sat and talked to him
As round the room he strolled.
Here in the room where, years ago
Before the old life stopped,
He worked all day with his slippers and his pipe.
He would pick up the threads he'd dropped.
Fondling all the drawings he had left behind,
Glad to find them all still the same,
And opening the cupboards to look at his belongings
. . . Every time he came.
100
I9I7
But now I know what a dog doesn't know,
Though you'll thrust your head on my knee,
And try to draw me from the absent-mindedness
That you find so dull in me.
And all your life you will never know
What I wouldn't tell you even if I could,
That the last time we waved him away
Willy went for good.
But sometimes as you lie on the hearthrug
Sleeping in the warmth of the stove.
Even through your muddled old canine brain
Shapes from the past may rove.
You'll scarcely remember, even in a dream.
How we brought home a silly little pup.
With a big square head and little crooked legs
That could scarcely bear him up.
But your tail will tap at the memory
Of a man whose friend you were.
Who was always kind though he called you a naughty dog
When he found you on his chair ;
Who'd make you face a reproving finger
And solemnly lecture you
Till your head hung downwards and you looked very
sheepish I
And you'll dream of your triumphs too.
Of summer evening chases in the garden
When you dodged us all about with a bone :
We were three boys, and you were the cleverest.
But now we're two alone.
When summer comes again.
And the long sunsets fade.
We shall have to go on playing the feeble game for two
That since the war we've played.
lOl
VALOUR AND VISION
And though you run expectant as you always do
To the uniforms we meet,
You'll never find Willy among all the soldiers
In even the longest street,
Nor in any crowd ; yet, strange and bitter thought,
Even now were the old words said,
If I tried the old trick and said ' Where 's Willy ? '
You would quiver and lift your head,
And your brown eyes would look to ask if I were serious,
And wait for the word to spring.
Sleep undisturbed : I sha'n't say that again.
You innocent old thing.
I must sit, not speaking, on the sofa,
While you lie asleep on the floor ;
For he's suffered a thing that dogs couldn't dream of.
And he won't be coming here any more.
J. C. Squire.
Lights Out
I HAVE come to the borders of sleep,
The unfathomable deep
Forest where all must lose
Their way, however straight,
Or winding, soon or late ;
They cannot choose.
Many a road and track
That, since the dawn's first crack.
Up to the forest brink.
Deceived the travellers
Suddenly now blurs,
And in they sink.
Here love ends,
Despair, ambition ends.
All pleasure and all trouble,
loz
1917
Although most sweet or bitter,
Here ends in sleep that is sweeter
Than tasks most noble.
There is not any book
Or face of dearest look
That I would not turn from now
To go into the unknown
I must enter and leave alone
I know not how.
The tall forest towers ;
Its cloudy foliage lowers
Ahead, shelf above shelf;
Its silence I hear and obey
That I may loose my way
And myself.
"{•Edwakd Thomas.
92
In Memoriam : Edward Thomas
^[ O more can I love spring though cuckoo 's here,
■*■ ^ Since I mourned you before that note was heard,
Who there beyond the guns forgot cold fear
To see the nesting of a homely bird.
Amid the late snows of that dreadful year
Swift thy soul passed into the written word ;
Never to die whilst English names are dear
And England breeds the men you charactered.
A light rain ceases, clear one chiff-chafF sings ;
Fresh drops are glistening on each green-tipped tree.
Fair spring you loved the saddest memory brings
Of Eastertide, when you rode forth with me
In quest of something we were not to find.
Perhaps another world has proved more kind.
Julian Thomas.
103
VALOUR AND VISION
93
Mediation in June, 1917
I
How can we reason still, how look afar,
Who, these three years now, are
Drifting, poor flotsam hugely heaved and hurled
In the birthday of a world,
Upon the waves of the creative sea ?
How gain lucidity
Or even keep the faith wherewith at first
We met the storm that burst.
The singing hope of revolution's prime ?
For in that noble time
We saw the petty world dissolve away
And fade into a day
Where dwelt new spirits of a better growth.
Unchecked by spite and sloth.
We saw, and even now we seem to see
In fitful revery.
Like hills obscured and hid by earthly mist,
The hopes that first we kissed :
We see them — catch at them and lose again
In apathy and pain
What maybe was (though it once seemed ours to hold)
No more than fairy gold.
We pity those whom quick death overtakes,
Though they will never see
How hope dissolves and founded loyalty shakes
Traitorously, piteously.
They lose at most and death is voiceless still
Nor whispers in their ears
104
I9I7
When they are lying on the deep-scarred hill
What our calm silence hears.
They lose all various life, they lose the day,
The clouds, the winds, the rain,
The blossoms down an English road astray
They will not see again ;
Great is their loss, but more tremendous things
To us at home are given,
Doubts, fears and greeds and shameful waverings
That hide the blood-red heaven.
They knew no doubt and fear was soon put by :
Freely their souls could move
In deeds that gave new life to loyalty,
A sharper edge to love.
They are the conquerors, the happy dead.
Who gave their lives away.
And now amid the trenches where they bled,
Forgetful of the day,
Deaf, blind and unaware, sleep on and on.
Nor open eyes to weep.
Know nought of what is ended or begun
But only and always sleep.
We said on that first day, we said and swore
That self should be no more.
That we were risen, that we would wholly be
For love and liberty ;
And in the exhilaration of that oath
We cast off spite and sloth
And laboured for an hour, till we began,
Man after piteous man,
To lose the splendour, to forget the dream
And leave our noble theme,
I OS
VALOUR AND VISION
To iind again our lusts and villainies
And seek a baser prize ;
This we have done and what is left undone
Cries out beneath the sun.
How glad a dawn fades thus in foggy night,
Where not a star shines bright !
IV
Is all then gone ? That nobler morning mood
When pain appeared an honour and grief a gift
And what was difficult was also good ?
Are all our wishes on the waves adrift ?
The young, the eager-hearted, they are gone,
And we, the stay-at-homes, are tired and old,
Careless how carelessly our work is done,
Forgetful how that morning rose in gold
When all our hearts cried out in unison.
Triumphant in the new triumphal sun.
How dull a night succeeds ! how dark and cold !
We will arise. Oh, not as then with singing.
But silence in our mouths and no word said.
Though wracks of that lost glory round us dinging
Shame us with broken oaths we swore the dead.
But steadfast in humility we rise,
Hoping no glory, having merited none.
Through the long night to toil with aching eyes
And pray that our humbler hearts may earn the sun.
Edward Shanks.
94
Chemin des Dames
T N silks and satins the ladies went
■»■ Where the breezes sighed and the poplars bent,
Taking the air of a Sunday morn
Midst the red of poppies and gold of corn —
1 06
Flowery ladies in stiff brocades,
With negro pages and serving-maids,
In scarlet coach or in gilt sedan,
With brooch and buckle and flounce and fan,
Patch and powder and trailing scent.
Under the trees the ladies went —
Lovely ladies that gleamed and glowed.
As they took the air on the Ladies' Road.
Boom of thunder and lightning flash —
The torn earth rocks to the barrage crash ;
The bullets whine and the bullets sing
From the mad machine-guns chattering ;
Black smoke rolling across the mud,
Trenches plastered with flesh and blood —
The blue ranks lock with the ranks of grey,
Stab and stagger and sob and sway ;
The living cringe from the shrapnel bursts.
The dying moan of their burning thirsts,
Moan and die in the gulping slough —
Where are the butterfly ladies now ?
Crosbie Garstin.
9S
Casualty
THEY are bringing him down.
He looks at me wanly.
The bandages are brown.
Brown with mud, red only —
But how deep a red ! in the breast of the shirt,
Deepening red too, as each whistling breath
Is drawn with the suck of a slow-filling squirt
While waxen cheeks waste to the pallor of death.
107
VALOUR AND VISION
my comrade !
My comrade that you could rest
Your tired body on mine, that your head might be laid
Fallen and heavy — upon this my breast,
That I might take your hands in my hands
To chafe ! That abandoned your body might sink
Upon mine, which here helplessly, grievously stands ;
That your body might drink
Warmth from my body, strength from my veins.
Life from my heart that monstrously beats,
Beats, beats and strains
After you vainly !
The trench curves. They are gone.
The steep rain teems down.
O, my companion !
Who were you ? How did you come,
Looking so wanly upon me ? I know —
And O, how immensely long I have known —
Those aching eyes, numb face, gradual gloom,
That depth without groan !
Take now my love — this love which alone
1 can give you — and shed without pain —
That life if I could I would succour,
Even as it were
This, this, my poor own I
Robert Nichols.
From Albert to Bapaume
LONELY and bare and desolate.
Stretches of muddy filtered green,
A silence half articulate
Of all that those dumb eyes have seen*
108
I9I7
A battered trench, a tree with boughs
Smutted and black with smoke and fire,
A solitary ruined house,
A crumped mass of rusty wire.
And scarlet by each ragged fen
Long scattered ranks of poppies lay,
As though the blood of the dead men
Had not been wholly washed away.
Alec Waugh.
97
' On the Wings of the Morning '
A SUDDEN roar, a mighty rushing sound,
a jolt or two, a smoothly sliding rise,
a tumbled blur of disappearing ground,
and then all sense of motion slowly dies.
Quiet and calm, the earth slips past below,
as underneath a bridge still waters flow.
My turning wing inclines towards the ground ;
the ground itself glides up with graceful swing
and at the plane's far tip twirls slowly round,
then drops from sight again beneath the wing
to slip away serenely as before,
a cubist-pattemed carpet on the floor.
Hills gently sink and valleys gently fill.
The flattened fields grow ludicrously small ;
slowly they pass beneath and slower still
until they hardly seem to move at all.
Then suddenly they disappear from sight,
hidden by fleeting wisps of faded white.
109
VALOUR AND VISION
The wing-tips, faint and dripping, dimly show,
blurred by the wreaths of mist that intervene.
Weird, half-seen shadows flicker to and fro
across the pallid fog — ^bank's blinding screen.
At last the choking mists release their hold,
and all the world is silver, blue, and gold.
The air is clear, more clear than sparkling wine ;
compared with this, wine is a turgid brew.
The far horizon makes a clean-cut line
between the silver and the depthless blue.
Out of the snow-white level reared on high
glittering hills surge up to meet the sky.
Outside the wind screen's shelter gales may race :
but in the seat a cool and gentle breeze
blows steadily upon my grateful face.
As I sit motionless and at ray ease,
contented just to loiter in the sun
and gaze around me till the day is done.
And so I sit, half sleeping, half awake,
dreaming a happy dream of golden days,
until at last, with a reluctant shake
I rouse myself, and with a lingering gaze
at all the splendour of the shining plain
make ready to come down to earth again.
The engine stops : a pleasant silence reigns —
silence, not broken, but intensified
by the soft, sleepy wires' insistent strains,
that rise and fall, as with a sweeping glide
I slither down the well-oiled sides of space,
towards a lower, less enchanted place.
no
I 917
The clouds draw nearer, changing as they come.
Now, like a flash, fog grips me by the throat.
Down goes the nose : at once the wires* low hum
begins to rise in volume and in note,
till, as I hurtle from the choking cloud
it swells into a scream, high-pitched, and loud.
The scattered hues and shades of green and brown
fashion themselves into the land I know,
turning and twisting, as I spiral down
towards the landing-ground ; till, skimming low,
I glide with slackening speed across the ground,
and come to rest with lightly grating sound.
Jeffery Day.
98
Palestine
HOW strange if it should fall to you.
To me, our boys should do the deed
The great Crusaders failed to do !
To win Christ's Sepulchre : to bleed,
So the immortal dream come true.
What ghosts now throng the Holy Ground,
With rusted armour, dinted sword,
Listening ? The earth shakes with the sound ;
The wind brings hither a fierce word :
To arms, to arms. Sons of Mahound!
In many a quiet cloister grey
Cross-legged Crusaders, men of stone,
Quiver and stir the Eastward way.
As they would spring up and be gone
To the Great Day, to the Great Day.
Ill
VALOUR AND VISION
Godfrey and Lion-Heart and all
The splendours of the faithful years
Watch our young sons from the Knights' stall,
Ready to clap hands to their spears
IfiU befall, if ill befall.
They say : // is the Chiles Crusade
JVat talked of in our early Spring.
St. George, St. Denis, to their aid t
That was a boys voice challenging.
Shrill like a bugle, unafraid!
Most wonderful, if your son, my son,
Should win the Holy Thing at last !
The might of Heathenesse be undone,
The strong towers down, the gate unfast.
Lord Christ come to His own, His own.
Katherine Tynan.
99
The Crusader's Tomb
O NAMELESS warrior, whose feet
Have borne thee to thy goal,
Pray thou for me, while dust and heat
Lie heavy on my soul !
Here, in what heritage of ease.
The years give rest to them,
Because of old thy crossed knees
Knelt in Jerusalem !
And tell me, were the gates of pearl ?
And were the streets of gold ?
And did the Tree of Life unfurl
Leaves lovely to behold ?
I9I7
Shone she with jewels round about
Her deeply-founded wall,
Making her very stones cry out
Of Love who died for all ?
And did the vision of that Mount
Kindle in thee such flame
That Grief forgot her old account
When home the warrior came ?
And did the face of past desire
Seem then an empty show,
Giving to lips which once were fire
A form more white than snow ?
O dear acquaintance of that spot,
Befriend an exile's prayer !
So shall the heart that sees it not
Be as it had been there.
Let far-off good which was ray trust
Bring healing to mine eyes,
Or make me even as the dust
In Holy Land that lies !
Laurence Housman.
700
T^he Kingfisher
A FLASH of blue
And a flicker of fire —
A thought of you,
And the heart's desire.
A pencil-stroke
By the unseen drawn, —
A sigh that spoke
Of a hope's young dawn.
113 I
VALOUR AND VISION
Jewel of blue
And of fire-raped red.
Past rae, past you
The Kingfisher sped.
Dyneley Hussey.
lOl
Morituri T'e salutant
IN this last hour, before the bugles blare
The summons of the dawn, we turn again
To you, dear country, you whom unaware
Through summer years of idle selfishness
We still have loved, — ^who loved us none the less,
Knowing the destined hour would find us men.
O thrill and laughter of the busy town !
O flower-valleys, trees against die skies,
Wild moor and woodland, glade and sweeping down,-
O land of our desire ! — like men asleep
We have let pass the years, nor felt you creep
So close into our hearts' dear sanctities.
We have been dreamers ; but our dreams are cast
Henceforward in a more heroic mould ;
We have kept faith with our immortal past.
Knights, we have found the lady of our love ;
Minstrels, have heard great harmonies, above
The lyrics that enraptured us of old.
The dawn 's aglow with lustre of the sun . . .
O love, O burning passion, that has made
Our day illustrious tiU its hours are done, —
114
I9I7
Fire our dull hearts, that in our sun's eclipse,
When Death stoops low to kiss us on the lips,
He still may find us singing unafraid !
One thing we know, that love so greatly spent
Dies not when lovers die : — from hand to hand
We pass the torch and perish, well content
If in dark years to come our countrymen
Feel the divine flame leap in them again,
And so remember us, and understand.
P. H. B. Lyon.
102
'The Great Company
PERPETUA, Felicitas,
And all the strong and steadfast saints
Whose names are mentioned in the Mass :
I thought of you as aureoled
Like those the old Italian paints
In filmy garments fringed with gold ;
I thought of you all in a row
In rainbow-coloured drapery.
Like Saints of Fra Angelico.
But now I know you ; tender friends
Who come about us when we die.
And when we're wounded make amends.
Your martyred blood was once the seed
You gladly gave for Christ to sow.
Now others die for others' need.
IIS I 2
VALOUR AND VISION
But in their lesser blinder way
They make an offering as good.
And you'll bend down and with them stay ;
Bend down, as patient nurses bend
When men are needing drink or food,
And help them at the very end ;
Bend down with beautiful glad names,
(And one to me is very dear,
I have a special claim on him.)
Barnabas, Agnes, Agatha,
Stephen, Ignatius, be you near,
Lucy and Anastasia !
You, broken in the circus ring,
Tom by wild beasts and crucified.
You'll pity all their suffering.
Maybe, they had no time to say
One little prayer before they died.
But you'll be there with them to pray.
Maybe, they had no time to pray.
Who stemmed the hostile tide for us.
But you'll be with them on their way ;
And tell them that we're glad they died.
And that we know they died for us.
And so they will be satisfied.
John, Marcellinus, Cicely,
You who have loved and suffered thus,
Admit them to your Company :
Tell them we know they died for us.
Alys Fane Trotter.
ii6
I9I7
103
JEpitaph on an Army of Mercenaries
TTHESE, in the day when heaven was falling,
*■ The hour when earth's foundations fled,
Followed their mercenary calling
And took their wages and are dead.
Their shoulders held the sky suspended ;
They stood, and earth's foundations stay ;
What God abandoned, these defended.
And saved the sum of things for pay.
A. E. HOUSMAN.
A Lament
WE who are left, how shall we look again
Happily on the sun, or feel the rain.
Without remembering how they who went
Ungrudgingly, and spent
Their all for us, loved, too, the sun and rain ?
A bird among the rain-wet lilac sings —
But we, how shall we turn to little things
And listen to the birds and winds and streams
Made holy by their dreams.
Nor feel the heart-break in the heart of things ?
Wilfrid Wilson Gibson.
117
VALOUR AND VISION
loy
Between Midnight and Morning ^
YOU that have faith to look with fearless eyes
Beyond the tragedy of a world at strife,
And trust that out of night and death shall rise
The dawn of ampler life ;
Rejoice, whatever anguish rend your heart,
That God has given you, for a priceless dower.
To live in these great times and have your part
In Freedom's crowning hour.
That you may tell your sons who see the light
High in the heaven, their heritage to take: —
' I saw the powers of darkness put to flight !
I saw the morning break ! '
Owen Seaman.
' These lines, which originally appeared in 1914 in the Book
of King Albert,^ete republished in 1917.
iS
I9I8
The Last 'Retreat —
Soissons
Second 'Battle of the 0\dame
t/tmiens
e/frmentieres
Zeebrugge
Ostende
<^
The 3\dacedonian Offensive
Capture of 'Damascus
Entry into a/Ileppo
Victory on the 'Piave
The Last tAdvance —
Lille
St. Quentin
Le Cateau
Mons
<>
O^vemher nth
119
1918
lo6
To Those at Home
■^ OW the portents all are dark,
•*• ^ Prophets prophesy in vain,
In the sun appears a mark,
On the moon a reddening stain.
Nightly now beneath Paul's fane
England's heroes, tombed and stark,
Seeketh each to rend his ark.
Turns in death and groans with pain.
Englishman, whoe'er thou art,
Steadfast keep the English heart.
Now the mean, the ever-wise,
The craven and the usurer
Openly or in disguise
Head to head by breaths confer,
Or with calculations nice
' Comrades what is Honour's price ? '
Cry, and none is answerer.
Englishman, whoe'er thou art,
Stainless keep the English heart.
Though the leagued, the Russian, friend
In his body be at strife.
Right hands with left hands contend
While heart bleeds away its life ;
Italy the sudden knife
Hardly from her throat can fend ;
France belov'd world without end
Seems with spite of party rife :
Englishman, whoe'er thou art
Dauntless keep the English heart.
121
VALOUR AND VISION
By all borne and left unsaid
By the fume-discoloured mire
Closing over the live head,
By the faces stripped by fire,
By sunlight's dumb and crowded wire,
By moonlight's lonely loathsome dead,
By weariness illimited
And death of spiritual desire :
Englishman, whoe'er thou art.
That is theirs, and this thy part :
Steadfast hold the English heart.
Robert Nichols.
107
The Tide
To the Royal Naval Division
npHIS is a last year's map ;
■» I know it all so well,
Stream and gully and trench and sap,
Hamel and all that hell ;
See where the old lines wind ;
It seems but yesterday
We left them many a league behind
And put the map away.
' Never again,' we said,
' Shall we sit in the Kentish Caves ;
Never again will the night-mules tread
Over the Beaucourt graves ;
They shall have Peace,' we dreamed —
' Peace and the quiet sun,'
And over the hills the French folk streamed
To live in the land we won.
122
1918
But the Bosch has Beaucourt now ;
It is all as it used to be —
Airmen peppering Thiepval brow,
Death at the Danger Tree ;
The tired men bring their tools
And dig in the old holes there ;
The great shells spout in the Ancre pools,
The lights go up from Serre.
And the regiment came, they say,
Back to the selfsame land
And fought like men in the same old way
Where the cookers used to stand ;
And I know not what they thought
As they passed the Puisieux Road
And over the ground where Freyberg fought
The tide of the grey men flowed.
But I think they did not grieve,
Though they left by the old Bosch line
Many a cross they loathed to leave,
Many a mate of mine ;
I know that their eyes were brave,
I know that their lips were stern,
For these went back at the seventh wave,
But they wait for the tide to turn.
A. P. Herbert.
108
Motley
COME, Death, I'd have a word with thee;
And thou, poor Innocency ;
And Love — a lad with broken wing ;
And Pity, too :
The Fool shall sing to you.
As Fools will sing.
123
VALOUR AND VISION
Ay, music hath small sense.
And a tune 's soon told,
And Earth is old.
And my poor wits are dense ;
Yet have I secrets, — dark, my dear.
To breathe you all : Come near.
And lest some hideous listener tells,
I'll ring my bells.
They're all at war ! —
Yes, yes, their bodies go
'Neath burning sun and icy star
To chaunted songs of woe,
Dragging cold cannon through a mire
Of rain and blood and spouting fire.
The new moon glinting hard on eyes
Wide with insanities !
Hush ! . . . I use words
I hardly know the meaning of;
And the mute birds
Are glancing at Love
From out their shade of leaf and flower,
Trembling at treacheries
Which even in noonday cower.
Heed, heed not what I said
Of frenzied hosts of men.
More fools than I,
On envy, hatred fed.
Who kill, and die —
Spake I not plainly, then ?
Yet Pity whispered, ' Why ? '
Thou silly thing, off to thy daisies go.
Mine was not news for child to know,
124
19 I 8
And Death — ^no ears hath. He hath supped where creep
Eyeless worms in hush of sleep ;
Yet, when he smiles, the hand he draws
Athwart his grinning jaws —
Faintly the thin bones ratde, and — There, there ;
Hearken how my bells in the air
Drive away care ! . . .
Nay, but a dream I had
Of a world all mad.
Not simple happy mad like me,
Who am mad like an empty scene
Of water and willow tree,
Where the wind hath been ;
But that foul Satan-mad,
Who rots in his own head.
And counts the dead,
Not honest one — ^and two —
But for the ghosts they were.
Brave, faithful, true.
When, head in air.
In Earth's clear green and blue
Heaven they did share
With beauty who bade them there. . . .
There, now ! Death goes —
Mayhap I've wearied him.
Ay, and the light doth dim,
And asleep 's the rose,
And tired Innocence
In dreams is hence. . . .
Come, Love, my lad,
Nodding that drowsy head,
'Tis time thy prayers were said !
Walter de la Mare.
125
VALOUR AND VISIONj
lop
Kismet
OPAL fires in the Western sky
(For that which is written must ever be),
And a bullet comes droning, whining by,
To the heart of a sentry close to me.
For some go early, and some go late
(A dying scream on the evening air)
And who is there that believes in Fate
As a soul goes out in the sunset flare ?
+ R. B. Marriott-Watson.
110
Sunset
C ICKLE moon and smouldering star,
*^ Beauty burning in the west ;
Where is he that I loved best ?
Beauty burning in the west,
Lo, an iron ache called War
Gathers him to her stark breast.
Sickle moon and smouldering star —
All the soul hath she possess'd
Of the love that I loved best.
Like a King he takes his rest,
Past all loves and dreams that are —
Sickle moon and smouldering star
Beauty burning in the west.
T. W. H. CROStANP.
126
I 91 8
III
The King's Messengers
'T'HERE 'S a stir within the City, there 's a throng before
-*■ the gate,
For the last long cruise is over, and the shipwrecked sailors
wait
While St. Peter reads their records, none too closely now
and then,
As a fisherman who 's trodden in the paths of sailor men.
And recalls again the story from his Galilean home
Of a ship, and one who doubted, though his Master bade
him come.
As he reads anew, in wonder, for the tale is of a sort
That concerns the lost and missing, crews that never came
to port.
Bringing bales of wool from Sydney, fetching fruit and
frozen meat,
Crews of ships that sank defenceless with their freights of
golden wheat,
Red Cross ships and Channel steamers, tramps that toiled
along the coast.
Most content upon their errands where the perils lurked
the most.
Was there lack of food or raiment, was there sickness, pain,
or need ?
Where the cry went up for succour, there the messengers
would speed.
Never asking whose the summons, though the daily call
were plain
As — ^the sound of many waters — as the voice they hear
again:
127
VALOUR AND VISION
For the tidings spread and echo, to the City's farthest ends,
' Inasmuch as they have done it to the least of these My
friends,
Be it counted Royal Service ' ; and with never let or ban
Will the City gates stand open to the Merchant Sailor Man.
R. A. HopwooD.
112
Destroyers
THROUGH the dark night
And the fury of battle
Pass the destroyers in showers of spray.
As the Wolf-pack to the flank of the cattle.
We shall close in on them — shadows of grey.
In from ahead.
Through shell-flashes red.
We shall come down to them, after the Day.
Whistle and crash
Of salvo and volley
Round us and into us while we attack.
Light on our target they'll flash in their folly.
Splitting our ears with the shrapnel-crack.
Fire as they will,
We'll come to them still.
Roar as they may at us — Back — Go Back !
White though the sea
To the shell-flashes foaming,
We shall be there at the death of the Hun.
Only we pray for a star in the gloaming
(Light for torpedoes and none for a gun).
Lord— of Thy Grace
Make it a race,
Over the sea with the night to run.
' Klaxon.'
iz8
1918
Submarines
WHEN the breaking wavelets pass all sparkling to the
sky,
When beyond their crests we see the slender masts go by,
When the glimpses alternate in bubbles white and green,
And funnels grey against the sky show clear and fair
between,
When the word is passed along — ' Stern and beam and
bow' —
' Action stations fore and aft — all torpedoes now ! '
When the hissing tubes are still, as if with bated breath
They waited for the word to loose the silver bolts of death.
When the Watch beneath the Sea shall crown the great
Desire,
And hear the coughing rush of air that greets the word to
fire.
We'll ask for no advantage, Lord — but only we would pray
That they may meet this boat of ours upon their outward
way.
* Klaxon.'
Brothers of the Sea
SEA-WEARY, Argonauts, beaching their barque,
Greeted their brothers with salty throats ;
Noah leant out of his painted Ark,
Crying, ' Ho ! My sons ! ' to the Oilskin Coats,
Peter the Fisherman taking notes
Added, smiling against his will,
' One old cruiser, two ferry boats —
Vindictive, Iris, and De^odiW
129 K
VALOUR AND VISION
Quoth the fair-haired Vikings, reckless and stark,
' We stirred the mud of our islands' moats I
We, too, went pirating into the dark
When we were sowing our wild sea-oats ! '
' Nay, pirates are numbered among the goats ! '
Cried the Pilgrim Fathers, from over the hill, —
' On these the flag of the Mayflower floats —
Vindictive, Iris, and Daffodil! '
Nelson listened, and Drake said, ' Hark ! '
And the English captains, as many as motes.
Chuckled like schoolboys over a lark —
' Now these are the lads that take our votes ! '
From Land's End northward to John o' Groats
All round the coasts ran a sudden thrill
' O English rabbits will turn on stoats ! —
Vindictive, Iris, and Daffodil I '
O Guarded Land, where each barge devotes
Its work-a-day self to thine honour still !
See History, laughing, as she quotes
Vindictive, Iris, and Dqfffodill
J. H. Macnair.
lis
Nox Mortis
nPHE afternoon
•*• Flutters and dies :
The fairy moon
Bums in the skies
As they grow darker, and the first stars shine
On Night's rich mantle — purple like warm wine.
130
I 9 I S
On each white road
Begins to crawl
The heavy toad :
The night-birds call,
And round the trees the swift bats flit and wheel,
While from the barns the rats begin to steal.
So now must I,
Bird of the night.
Towards the sky
Make wheeling flight,
And bear my poison o'er the gloomy land,
And let it loose with hard unsparing hand.
The chafers boom
With whirring wings,
And haunt the gloom
Which twilight brings —
So in nocturnal travel do I wail
As through the night the wingdd engines sail.
Death, Grief, and Pain
Are what I give.
O that the slain
Might live — might live !
I know them not, for I have blindly killed.
And nameless hearts with nameless sorrow filled.
Thrice cursed War
Which bids that I
Such death should pour
Down from the sky.
O, Star of Peace, rise swiftly in the East
That from such slaying men may be released.
Paul Bewsher.
131 K 2
VALOUR AND VISION
ll6
The Birds of Steel
' I 'HIS apple-tree, that once was green,
•^ Is now a thousand flowers in one !
And, with their bags strapped to their thighs,
There 's many a bee that comes for sweets,
To stretch each bag to its full size.
And when the night has grown a moon,
And I lie half-asleep in bed,
I hear those bees again — ah no,
It is the birds of steel, instead,
Seeking their innocent prey below.
Man-ridden birds of steel, unseen.
That come to drop their murdering lime
On any child or harmless thing
Before the early morning time :
Up, nearer to God, they fly and sing.
W. H. Davies.
U7
August 1918
{^In a French Village)
1HEAR the tinkling of the cattle bell
In the broad stillness of the afternoon ;
High in the cloudless haze the August moon
Is pallid as the phantom of a shell,
A girl is drawing water from a well ;
I hear the clatter of her wooden sheen ;
Two mothers to their sleeping babies croon ;
And the hot village feels the drowsy spell.
132
19 I 8
Sleep child, the Angel of Death his wings has spread ;
His engines scour the land, the sea, the sky ;
And all the weapons of Hell's armoury
Are ready for the blood that is their bread ;
And many a thousand men to-night must die,
So many that they will not count the dead.
Maurice Baring.
Il8
England's Saints
ipi4-ipi8
■^WTHO shall name them, this numberless army ? we
"^ know not their number or name.
But we know from the sign on their foreheads through
great tribulation they came ;
No calendar blazons their triumph with service of vigil or
feast,
And he that was greatest among them is even as he that
was least ;
They were men in the might of their manhood, or boys in
the beauty of youth,
But they held ail as dust in the balance to battling for freedom
and truth.
We shall see them no more to our sorrow, they are rapt
from the sphere of our pain.
And the sword and the fire and the bullet shall sear not
nor slay them again ;
Priest and poet, clerk, scholar and craftsman, sea-toilers or
sons of the sod —
From earth, air, and ocean up-gathered, they rest in the
garden of God.
Their shrines stand in city and highway, whose lamps of
remembrance abide
Fed with love from the heart-springs of England, and lit
from the torch of her pride ;
133
VALOUR AND VISION
Upon hill-slope, by hamlet or homestead, they shine
through the darkness undimmed,
Morn and eve, 'neath the Christ bowed above them, the
glimmering cressets are trimmed
By their angels, who pass unbeholden — so close hangs the
curtain between
Veiling heaven ; for the things that we see not are more
than the things that are seen.
Now, Lord, for the nation's uplifting — since this is the
noblest we know.
In Thy name to the help of the helpless, through death
and through darkness to go —
For our country who spared not her children, for mother,
love, sister, and wife,
Who endured what is deeper than death-wound, who gave
what was dearer than life.
For the pure and the wise and the godlike, who flocked to
Thy banner unfurled,
For the sinful — Thy saints in the making — we deemed but
the waste of the world.
For the builders of wood, hay and stubble — the foolish, the
faithless, the cold.
Whose dross Thou hast purged in the furnace, and touched
them, and turned them to gold.
For the fearless of heart, and the fearful who trembled but
came at Thy call.
We bless Thee, we thank Thee, we laud Thee, we love
Thee, O Father of all!
James Rhoades.
134
I9i8
119
A Dirge of Victory
LIFT not thy trumpet, Victory, to the sky.
Nor through battalions nor by batteries blow,
But over hollows full of old wire go.
Where among dregs of war the long-dead lie
With wasted iron that the guns passed by
When they went eastwards like a tide at flow ;
There blow thy trumpet that the dead may know,
Who waited for thy coming. Victory.
It is not we that have deserved thy wreath.
They waited there among the towering weeds :
The deep mud burned under the thermite's breath,
And winter cracked the bones that no man heeds :
Hundreds of nights flamed by : the seasons passed :
And thou hast come to them, at last, at last !
Lord Dunsanv.
135
VALOUR AND VISION
120
The Trust
' These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but
having seen them afar ofif.' — Ileb. xi. 13.
'T'HEY trusted God — Unslumbering and unsleeping.
■^ He sees and sorrows for a world at war,
His ancient covenant securely keeping,
And these had seen His promise from afar,
That through the pain, the sorrow, and the sinning,
That righteous Judge the issue should decide
Who ruleth over all from the beginning —
And in that faith they died.
They trusted England — Scarce the prayer was spoken
Ere they beheld what they had hungered for,
A mighty country with its ranks unbroken,
A city built in unity once more ;
Freedom's best champion, girt for yet another
And mightier enterprise for Right defied,
A land whose children live to serve their Mother
And in that faith they died.
And us they trusted ; we the task inherit,
The unfinished task for which their lives were spent ;
But leaving us a portion of their spirit
They gave their witness and they died content.
Full well they knew they could not build without us
That better country, faint and far descried,
God's own true England ; but they did not doubt us —
And in that faith they died.
C. A. Alington.
136
I 9 I «
121
Vision
T S it because that lad is dead
*■ My eyes are doing a double duty,
And drink, for his sake and in his stead,
Twice their accustomed draught of beauty ;
Or does the intoxicating Earth
Ferment in me with stronger leaven,
Because, for seeing the year's rebirth.
He loans me eyes that look on heaven ?
Frank Sidgwick.
122
Envoie
"LJ OW shall I say good-bye to you, wonderful, terrible
■^ * days,
If I should live to live and leave 'neath an alien soil
You, my men, who taught me to walk with a smile in the
ways
Of the valley of shadows, taught me to know you and love
you, and toil
Glad in the glory of fellowship, happy in misery, strong
In the strength that laughs at its weakness, laughs at its
sorrows and fears.
Facing the world that was not too kind with ajest and asong ?
What can the world hold afterwards worthy of laughter or
tears ?
Edward de Stein.
137
VALOUR AND VISION
12S
' Now to be Still and Rest . . . '
'^ O W to be still and rest, while the heart remembers
•^ ' All that it learned and loved in the days long past,
To stoop and warm our hands at the fallen embers,
Glad to have come to the long way's end at last.
Now to awake, and feel no regret at waking,
Knowing the shadowy days are white again,
To draw our curtains and watch the slow dawn breaking
Silver and grey on English field and lane.
Now to fulfil our dreams, in woods and meadows
Treading the well-loved paths — to pause and cry
' So, even so I remember it ' — seeing the shadows
Weave on the distant hills their tapestry.
Now to rejoice in children and join their laughter,
Tuning our hearts once more to the fairy strain,
To hear our names on voices we love, and after
Turn with a smile to sleep and our dreams again.
Then — with a new-born strength, the sweet rest over.
Gladly to follow the great white road once more.
To work with a song on our lips and the heart of a lover.
Building a city of peace on the wastes of war.
P. H. B. Lyon.
138
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS AND
NOTES
[The numbers refer to the poems.]
1. 2%e^o«riVa«, by Laurence BiNYON. (Elkin Mathews.)
2. The Years Between, by Rudyard Kipling. (Methuen.)
By kind permission of the author.
3. Stone Trees, by John Freeman. (Selwyn and Blount.)
4. A Salute from the Fleet, by Alfred Noyes. (Methuen.)
5. The Times, 1914.
6. Theophanies, by Evelyn Underbill. (J. M. Dent.)
7. A Muse at Sea, by E. Hilton Young. (Sidgwick and
Jackson.)
8. The Times, 1914.
9. Days of Destiny, by Col. Lord Gorell. (Longmans,
Green.)
10. To the Vanguard, by Beatrix Briqe. (Bickers and
Sons, Ltd.) This poem appeared anonymously in the
' In Memoriam ' column of The Tim^s on All Souls Day,
1916 (the second anniversary of the crisis of the first
Battle of Ypres). It has been set as a choral work by
Arthur Sullivan, and was the origin of the First Seven
Divisions Commemoration held in the Albert Hall in
Decemberl9i7.
11. St. George's Day, by Henry Newbolt. (John Murray.)
13. The Holy War, by Katharine Tynan. (Sidgwick and
Jackson.)
14. War Poems andOther Verses, by R. E. Vern^de. (London :
Heinemann.) The author, Lieut. R. E. Vernede, The
Rifle Brigade, was killed in Action on April 9, 1917.
15. The Volunteer and Other Poems, by Herbert Asquith.
(Sidgwick and Jackson.)
16. T'Af^ourKear'f, by Laurence BiNYON. (Elkin Mathews.)
17. Poems of To-day. (Sidgwick and Jackson.)
18. Coal and Candlelight, by Helen Parry Eden. (The
Bodley Head.)
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS AND NOTES
19. The Flower of Youth, by Katharine Tynan. (Sidgwick
and Jackson.)
20. The Westminster Gazette, 1914.
31. War rjmff, by Owen Seaman. (Constable.) Field-Marshal
Earl Roberts, born 1832. Died on Service at the Front,
November 14, 1914.
23. Stone Trees, by John Freeman. (Selwyn and Blount.)
24. The Four Years, by Laurence Binyon. (Elkin Mathews.)
25. Collected Poems, by James Elroy Flecker. (Martin
Seeker.)
26. The Spectator, ngi.
27. The Times, 1914.
28. In Flanders Fields, by Lt.-Col. John McCrae. (Hodder
and Stoughton.) Lt.-Col. John McCrae, M.D., Canadian
Contingent, died on Service at No. 14 General Hospital,
B.E.F., on January 28, 1918. His famous poem, 'In
Flanders Field ' was first published in Punch,
29. Collected Poems, by T. W. H. Crosland. (Martin Seeker.)
30. Blackwood's Magazine.
31. The Times, 1915. Captain the Hon. Julian Grenfell, D.S.O.,
Royal Dragoons, was mortally wounded on May 2"], 19I5-
32. Poems 1^14-igi'j, by Maurice Baring. (Martin Seeker.)
33. Three Hills, by EvERARD Owen. (Sidgwick and Jackson.)
34. The Harrovian, 19 1 5.
35. St. George's Day, by Henry Newbolt. (John Murray.)
36. Ardours and Endurances, by Robert Nichols. (Chatto
and Windus.)
37. The Times, 1915. This poem was written on the way to
Gallipoli ; the author, Lieut. Nowell Oxland, 6th Border
Regt., was killed in Action at Suvla Bay on August 9,
38. Collected Poems, by Rupert Brooke. (Sidgwick and
Jackson.) Sub-Lieutenant Rupert Brooke, R.N.V.R., died
in the /Sgean Sea, April 23, 1915.
39. Friends, by Wilfrid Wilson Gibson. (Elkin Mathews.)
40. Punch.
140
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS AND NOTES
41. Poe»w, by Geoffrey Dearmer. (London: Heinemann.)
42, 43. Songs and Chanties, by C. Fox Smith. (Elkin
Mathews.)
44. The City of Fear, by Gilbert Frankau. (Chatto and
Windus.;
45. War Poems and Other Verses, by R. E. VernJide. (London :
Heinemann.)
46. Blackwood's Magazine.
47. Verse and Prose in Peace and War, by William Noel
Hodgson. (Smith Elder.) Lieut. William Noel Hodgson,
M.C., Devon Regt., was killed in Action on July i, 1916.
48. The Saturday Westminster.
49. Marlborough and Other Poems, by Charles Hamilton
SoRLEY. (Cambridge University Press.) The author
fell in Action on Oct. 13, 1915- This sonnet was found
in his kit, sent home from France after his death.
50. Battle, by Wilfrid Wilson Gibson. (Elkin Mathews.)
51. Songs of Youth and War, by Capt. P. H. B. Lyon, M.C,
by permission of the author and the publishers, Erskine
MacDonald, Ltd.
52. The Omega and Other Poems, by Edward Shillito.
(Blackwell.)
53. A Gloucestershire Lad, by F. W. Harvey. (Sidgwick and
Jackson.)
54. Poems, by Alan Seeger. (Constable.) The author, an
American Subject who enlisted in the Foreign Legion, was
mortally wounded on July 4, 1916.
55. CoWfrferfPofOTi, byT. W. H. Crosland. (Martin Seeker.)
56. The Spectator, 1915.
57. In the Battle Silences, by F. G. ScOTT. (Constable.)
58. The Times, 1915. Captain the Hon. Robert Palmer, Hants
Regiment, died in the Turkish Camp of wounds received
on the Tigris on January 21, 1916.
59. Ardours and Endurances, by Robert Nichols. (Chatto
and Windus.)
60. Olton Pools, by John Drinkwater. (Sidgwick and
Jackson.)
141
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS AND NOTES
6i. Poems, by Alan Seeger. (Constable.) See No. 54.
62. The Times, 1916.
63. The Times, 1916. Lieutenant the Hon. Edward Wyndham
Tennant, Grenadier Guards, was killed in Action on
September 22, 191 6.
64. Poems 1916-1918, by Francis Brett Young. (Collins.)
65. The Times, 1916.
66. The Times, 1916.
67. The Queen of China, hyEnviML\}Sn\t>KS. (Martin Seeker.)
68. The Old Way, by R. A. Hopwood. (John Murray.)
69. Verse and Prose in Peace and War, by William Noel
Hodgson. (Smith Elder.) See also No. 47.
70. yi»-rfoa« o»rf £«rf«raK«j, by Robert Nichols. (Chatto
and Windus.)
71. From An Outpost, by Leslie Coulson. (Erskine Mac-
Donald.) Sgt. Leslie Coulson was killed in Action on
October 7, 19 16.
72. These lines were written at Kastamurin, in Asia Minor, while
the author, Captain F. J. Patmore, 7th Hampshire Regt,
was in a Prison Camp after the capture of Kut-el-Amara.
73. Magpies in Picardy, by T. P. Cameron Wilson. (The
Poetry Book Shop.) Captain T. P. Cameron Wilson,
Sherwood Foresters, was killed in France on March 23,
1918.
74. The Spectator.
IS- Jesus of the Scars, by Edward Shillito. (Hodder and
Stoughton.)
75. /« War TVm^, by MayWedderburnCannan. (Blackwell.)
77. ^rrfo«rs a«rf £»rfKrfl«c?i, by Robert Nichols. (Chatto
and Windus. )
78. Fairies and JFusiliers, by Robert Graves. (London :
Heinemann.)
79. Poems, by J. C. Squire. (Martin Seeker.)
80. Lieut. R. B. Marriott-Watson, M.C., 2nd R. Irish Rifles, was
killed in Action on March 24, 191S.
81. rAff^oar y«a«, by Laurence BiNYON. (Elkin Mathews.)
142
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS AND NOTES
83. Mesopotamia, by J. Griffyth Fairfax. (John Murray.)
Both this poem and No. 83 were written on the Upper
Euphrates between the Ramedi and Hit operations.
83. See No. 82.
84. See No 82. Written on the evening of the funeral in Bagdad,
at which the author was present. This poem was read at
the Funeral Service held by the Xlllth Division ,formerly
commanded by General Mau.le.
85. See No. 82.
86. Com^Zrfe PosmSjbyFRANCisLEDWiDGE. (Herbert Jenkins.)
Francis Ledwidge, Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers, was killed
in Action on July 31, ipi?-
87. W^A;«, by Wilfrid Wilson Gibson. (Macmillan.)
88. Counter Attack and Other Poems, by Siegfried Sassoon.
(London : Heinemann.)
89. Poems, by Geoffrey Dearmer. (London : Heinemann.)
90. Poems, by J. C. Squire. (Martin Seeker.)
91. Poems, by Edward Thomas. (Selwyn and Blount.)
92. In Memoriam : Edward Thomas, by Julian Thomas.
(Morland Press.)
93. The Queen of China, by Edward Shanks. (Martin
Seeker.)
94. Punch. This poem was written during the battle of the
' Chemin des Dames ' while the author was waiting to go
over the top.
96. Resentment, by Alec Waugh. (Grant Richards.)
97. Poems and Rhymes, by Jeffery Day. (Sidgwick and
Jackson.) This poem was first published in 'The Corn-
hill'- The author. Flight Commander Jeffery Day,
R.N.A.S., was shot down by six German aircraft, which he
attacked single-handed out at sea, on February 27, 1918.
98. Herb o' Grace, by Katharine Tynan. (Sidgwick and
Jackson.)
99. The Heart of Peace and Other Poems, by Laurence
HousMAN. (London : Heinemann.)
100. Fleur de Lys, by Dyneley Hussey. (The Little Books
of Georgian Verse series.) By kind permission of the
author and the publishers, Erskine MacDonald, Ltd.
143
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS AND NOTES
loi. Songs of Youth and War, by Capt. P. H. B. LvoN, M.C.
(Erskine MacDonald, Ltd.) By kind permission of the
author and the publishers.
102. Nigel and Other Poems, by Alys Fane Trotter. (Burns
and Oates.)
103. The Times, 1917. Written for the third anniversary of the
Battle of Ypres.
104. Whin, by Wilfrid Wilson Gibson. (Macmillan.)
105. War Time, by Owen Seaman. (Constable.)
106. The Sptctator.
107. The Bomber Gipsy, by A. P. Herbert. By kind permission
of the author and of Messers Methuen and Co., Ltd.
108. Motley and Other Poems, by Walter de la Mare.
(Constable.)
109. The Obseriier, 1918. See No. 80.
111. The Secret of Ships, hy K. fii^HovviOOTi. (John Murray.)
112, 113. On Patrol, by Klaxon. (William Blackwood.)
114. The Saturday Westminster.
115. The Bombing of Bruges, by Paul Bewsher. (Hodder and
Stoughton.)
116. Forty New Poems, by W. H. Davies. (Fifield, London.)
By kind permission of publisher and author.
118. The Observer.
119. The Times, 1918.
120. The Times, 1918.
121. The Westminster Gazette.
122. Poets in Picardy, by E. DE Stein. (John Murray.)
123. The Spectator.
I44
INDEX OF AUTHORS
[The numbers refer to the poems.]
Alexander, Eleanor. 62.
Alington, C. A. 120.
Anon. 65.
Asquith, Herbert. 15.
Baring, Maurice. 33, 117.
Bewsher, Paul. 115.
Binyon, Laurence. I, 16, 24,
81.
Bourdillon, F. W. 26.
Brice, Beatrix. lo.
Bridges, Elizabeth. 27.
Bridges, Robert. 66.
Brooke, Rupert. 38.
Cannan, May Wedderburn. 76.
Clark, Dudley. 5.
Coulson, Leslie. JJ.
Crewe, Marquess of. 34.
CroslandjT.W.H. 29,55,113.
Davies, W. H. 116.
Day, Jeffery. 97.
Dearmer, Geoffrey. 41, 89.
De la Mare, Walter. 108.
De Stein, Edward. 122.
Drinkwater, John. 60.
Dunsany, Lord. '19.
Eden, Helen Parry. 18.
Fairfax, J. Griffyth. 82, 83, 84,
85.
Flecker, James Elroy. 25.
Frankau, Gilbert. 44.
Freeman, John. 3, 23.
Garstin, Crosbie. 94.
Gibson, Wilfrid Wilson. 39,
50, 87, 104.
Gorell, Lord. 9.
Graves, Robert. 7^-
Grenfell, Julian. 31.
Hardy, Thomas. 8,
Harvey, F. W. 53.
Herbert, A. P. 107.
Hodgson, William Noel. 47,
69.
Hopwood, R. A. 68,111.
Housraan, A. E. 103.
Housman, Laurence. 99.
Hussey, Dyneley. 100.
Kipling, Rudyard. 2.
' Klaxon.' 113, 113.
Ledwidge, Francis. 86.
Lyon, P. H. B. 51, loi, 120.
Macaulay, Rose. 17.
McCrae, John. 28.
McGill, Patrick. 48.
Macnair, J. H. 114.
Marriott-Watson, R. B. 80,
109.
Munro, Neil. 30, 46.
Nankivell, A. T. 22.
Newbolt, Henry. 11, 35.
Nichols, Robert. 36, 59, 70,
77> 95, 106.
Noyes, Alfred. 4.
HS
INDEX OF AUTHORS
Owen, Everard. 33.
Oxland, Nowell. 37.
Pain, Barry. 20.
Palmer, Robert. 58.
Patmore, F. J. 72.
Rhoades, James. 118.
Sassoon, Siegfried. 88.
Scott, F. G. 57-
Seaman, Owen. 21, 105.
Seeger, Alan. 54, 61.
Shanks, Edward. 67, 93.
Shillito, Edward. 52, 75.
S!dgw!ck, Frank. 121.
Smith, C. Fox. 42, 43.
Sorley, Charles Hamilton. 49.
Squire, J. C. 79, 90.
Stuart, Dorothy Margaret. 40.
Tennant, Edward Wyndham.
63.
Thomas, Edward. 91.
Thomas, Julian. 92.
Trotter, Alys Fane. 12,102.
Tynan, Katharine. 13, 19, 98.
Underhill, Evelyn. 6.
Vernede, Robert. 14, 45.
Waugh, Alec. 96.
Wilson, Marjorie. J4.
Wilson, T. P. Cameron. 73'
W., L. 56.
Young, E. Hilton. 7.
Young, Francis Brett. 64.
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